I Don't by Susan Squire

Author:Susan Squire
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 2011-01-14T16:00:00+00:00

NINE

Cuckold’s Lament

CARICATURES of cuckolds, fables about wives who can’t get enough, vicious attacks on marriage: If the major themes of medieval secular culture are any indication, more than a few men (still the ones who set the themes, establish the tone, deliver the content) have sex on the brain and brain and not in a good way. The ancient conviction that women’s carnal hunger is incessant percolates throughout the medieval period, one of several factors that point to an exceedingly high level of male performance anxiety, especially in marriage.

The fear of impotence—and possibly worse, that if it occurs all the world will know—is widespread, under the transparent cover of fiction.1 There’s no Viagra, but there’s magic. Wives use it as the penitential writers (and the ancient Romans before them) have already reported inside and outside the Church, men’s preoccupation with the idea that women can manipulate their sexual functioning will only grow more pronounced, culminating with the Inquisition’s witch hunts. Not that men themselves don’t pursue magical cures for impotence wherever they may be found. One antidote—apparently lifted from Pliny, the first-century Roman naturalist—involves taking the testicle of a cock (the feathered variety), somehow enclosing it in a ram’s skin with a soupçon of goose fat, and tying it on the arm. The caveat: if this amulet falls under the bed, forget the erection.2

The assumption that women are nymphomaniacs is nothing new, but the popular literature of medieval Europe seems inordinately preoccupied by the subject.3 One typical fable, “The Fisherman from Bridge-upon-Seine,” concerns a man who is certain that his usefulness to his new bride begins and ends with his sexual prowess.4 She brings to their marriage a respectable dowry—wine, wheat, five cows, ten sheep—as well as an avid libido. He feeds her well, buys her good shoes and nice dresses, and “screwed her the best he could.” But he worries that his best won’t be good enough for her. He knows that “a young, well-fed wife / Would like to be screwed frequently,” and that if he cannot meet her standards she will leave him.

One night in bed, he asks what she loves about him. Faking modesty, she says not a word about what she loves most—the erect penis she holds in her hand. No, she loves him because he loves her, treats her well, and feeds and clothes her generously. Her groom knows better: “If I didn’t screw you well, / You would hate me worse than a dog.” She swears he is mistaken, calling his member an “outhouse organ” and claiming, “I wish a sow had eaten it / Except that you would have died.” He says, “If I had lost my prick . . . / You’d never love me.” Again she protests: “I wish it had pleased the true heart of God / That a dog had choked on it.”

She’s insistent enough to plant a seed of doubt, and the fisherman determines to find out the truth. A golden opportunity soon presents itself. While the

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