handout ‘Wife of Bath’

Jerome, Adversus Jovinianum – excerpt (in Jankyn’s “Book of wicked wives”)

ON MARIAGE

§5. First of all, he says, God declares that Genesis 2:24 therefore shall a man leave his father and his
mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. And lest we should say that this is
a quotation from the Old Testament, he asserts that it has been Matthew 19:5 confirmed by
the Lord in the Gospel - What God has joined together, let not man put asunder: and he immediately
adds, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. He next repeats the names of
Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalalel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, Noah, and tells us that they all had
wives and (…). Again, after the deluge, when the human race started as it were anew, men and
women were paired together and a fresh blessing was pronounced on procreation, Genesis 9:1 Be
fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. (…) We next learn that Joseph, a holy man of spotless
chastity, and all the patriarchs, had wives, and that God blessed them all alike through the lips of
Moses. (…)
He then points out how David himself, for the price of two hundred foreskins and at the peril
of his life, was bedded with the king's daughter. What shall I say of Solomon, whom he includes in
the list of husbands, and represents as a type of the Saviour, maintaining that of him it was
written, Give the king your judgments, O God, and your righteousness unto the king's son? (…) Listen
to the words of Paul, 1 Timothy 5:14 'I desire therefore that the younger widows marry, bear
children.' And 'Marriage is honorable and the bed undefiled.' And 1 Corinthians 7:39 'A wife is bound
for so long time as her husband lives; but if the husband be dead, she is free to be married to whom
she will; only in the Lord.' (…) Then comes much more which it would be unprofitable to discuss. At
last he dashes into rhetoric and apostrophizes virginity thus: I do you no wrong, Virgin: you have
chosen a life of chastity on account of the present distress: you determined on the course in order to
be holy in body and spirit: be not proud: you and your married sisters are members of the
same Church. (…)

§7. Among other things the Corinthians asked [Paul] in their [first] letter whether after embracing
the faith of Christ they ought to be unmarried, and for the sake of continence put away their wives,
and whether believing virgins were at liberty to marry. And again, supposing that one of two Gentiles
believed on Christ, whether the one that believed should leave the one that believed not? And in
case it were allowable to take wives, would the Apostle direct that only Christian wives,
or Gentiles also, should be taken? Let us then consider Paul’s replies to these inquiries. Now
concerning the things whereof you wrote: It is good for a man not to touch a woman. But, because
of fornications, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband. Let the
husband render unto the wife her due: and likewise also the wife unto the husband. The wife has not
power over her own body, but the husband. And likewise also the husband has not power over his
own body, but the wife. (…) But this I say by way of permission not of commandment. Yet I would
that all men were even as I myself. Howbeit each man has his own gift from God, one after this
manner, and another after that. But I say to the unmarried and to widows, it is good for them if they
abide even as I. But if they have not continence, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to
burn. Let us turn back to the chief point of the evidence: It is good, he says, for a man not to touch
a woman. (…)

§47. I feel that in giving this list of women I have said far more than is customary in illustrating a
point, and that I might be justly censured by my learned reader. But what am I to do when
the women of our time press me with apostolic authority, and before the first husband is buried,
repeat from morning to night the precepts which allow a second marriage?
[...]

Seeing they despise the fidelity which Christian purity dictates, let them at least learn chastity from
the heathen. A book On Marriage, worth its weight in gold, passes under the name of Theophrastus.1
In it the author asks whether a wise man marries. And after laying down the conditions— that the
wife must be fair, of good character, and honest parentage, the husband in good health and of ample
means, and after saying that under these circumstances a wise man sometimes enters the state
of matrimony, he immediately proceeds thus:

“But all these conditions are seldom satisfied in marriage. A wise man therefore must not
take a wife. For in the first place his study of philosophy will be hindered,2 and it is impossible
for anyone to attend to his books and his wife. Matrons want many things, costly dresses,
gold, jewels, great outlay, maid-servants, all kinds of furniture, litters and gilded coaches.
Then come curtain-lectures the livelong night: she complains that one lady goes out better
dressed than she: that another is looked up to by all:3 'I am a poor despised nobody at
the ladies' assemblies.' 'Why did you ogle that creature next door?' 'Why were you talking to
the maid?' 'What did you bring from the market?' 'I am not allowed to have a single friend, or
companion.' She suspects that her husband's love goes the same way as her hate. (…) To
support a poor wife, is hard: to put up with a rich one, is torture. Notice, too, that in the case
of a wife you cannot pick and choose: you must take her as you find her. If she has a bad
temper, or is a fool, if she has a blemish, or is proud, or has bad breath, whatever her fault
may be— all this we learn after marriage4. Horses, asses, cattle, even slaves of the smallest
worth, clothes, kettles, wooden seats, cups, and earthenware pitchers, are first tried and then
bought: a wife is the only thing that is not shown before she is married, for fear she may not
give satisfaction. Our gaze must always be directed to her face, and we must always praise
her beauty: if you look at another woman, she thinks that she is out of favor. She must be
called my lady, her birth-day must be kept, we must swear by her health and wish that she
may survive us, respect must be paid to the nurse, to the nursemaid, to the father's slave, to
the foster-child, (…). If you give her the management of the whole house, you must yourself
be her slave. If you reserve something for yourself, she will not think you are loyal to her; but
she will turn to strife and hatred, and unless you quickly take care, she will have the poison
ready. (…). If a woman be fair, she soon finds lovers; if she be ugly, it is easy to be wanton. It
is difficult to guard what many long for. It is annoying to have what no one thinks
worth possessing. But the misery of having an ugly wife is less than that of watching a comely
one. Nothing is safe, for which a whole people sighs and longs. (…)”.

§48. When Theophrastus thus discourses, (…)

Socrates had two wives, Xantippe and Myron, grand-daughter of Aristides. They frequently
quarreled, and he was accustomed to banter them for disagreeing about him, he being the ugliest of
men, with snub nose, bald forehead, rough-haired, and bandy-legged. At last they planned an attack
upon him, and having punished him severely, and put him to flight, vexed him for a long time. On one
occasion when he opposed Xantippe; who from above was heaping abuse upon him,
the termagant soused him with dirty water, but he only wiped his head and said, I knew that a
shower must follow such thunder as that.

1
Theophrastus, Liber de nuptiis
2
cf. Wife of Bath, Prologue, 697-710 about Mercury/Venus – scholar/woman.
3
cf. Wife of Bath, Prologue, “But now hear how I spoke: - ‘……. ‘ “ (ll. 235-317 based on Jerome/Theophrastus;
what follows is of her own invention (- l. 379)
4
cf. after wedding with Jankyn (husband no. 5)