Golden Book of Marriage and Utopia

Hey guys!

So, I'd like to make a connection here between the Wife of Bath’s prologue and part of Book II of Utopia, something that occurred to me while reading the latter. I’m not necessarily sure of what conclusion I can draw from all of this so I hope someone else can help me!

Also, psa I’m in both Dr. MB’s Chaucer and Brit Lit class and we discussed the Wife of Bath at the exact same time so I hope I’m not mixing up what we covered in each class. If so uh…at least you’ll have some new information!

So, while covering the Wife of Bath, we discussed the book that Jenkin read to her that she eventually ripped pages out of. The book is called “The Book of Wicked Wives” and the section I’m going to be looking at is one we read in class and it at the back of our book on page 358. It is from the section written by Theophrastus, Golden Book of Marriage.
It reads: “Moreover there is no choice in the matter of a wife: one has to take whatever comes along. If she’s nagging, stupid, ugly, proud, smelly—whatever fault she has, we find out after marriage. Now a horse, an ass, a cow, a dog, the cheapest of slaves, clothes, kettles, a wooden chair, a cup, a clay pot—all these are tested first, and then purchased. Only a wife is not put on display—in case her faults are discovered before we take her.”

Ignoring the obvious, horrifying misogyny in this section (I know, it pains me to ignore it and not rant about it), I’d like to point out that there is a connection with Utopia.

In Book II of Utopia, we are being told all of the different ways that the society works in Utopia. This “perfect” land has a distinctive ritual that the men and women go through before marrying; one which several people objected to in class. We see this on page 72.

More is repeating Raphael’s explanation of Utopia and is talking about marriage. “Whether she is a widow or a virgin, the woman is shown naked to the suitor by the responsible and respectable matron; and similarly, some respectable man presents the suitor naked to the woman…When men go to buy a colt, where they are risking only a little money, they are so suspicious that, though the beast is almost bare, they won’t close the deal until the saddle and blanket have been taken off, lest there be a hidden sore underneath. Yet in the choice of a mate, which may cause either delight or disgust for the rest of their lives, people are completely careless. They leave all the rest of her body completely covered up with clothes and estimate the attractiveness of a woman from a mere handsbreadth of her person, the face, which is all they can see. And so they marry, running the risk of bitter discord, if something in either’s person should offend the other.”

So what does this tell us? Well, for one, both Theophrastus and More (the author) or Raphael (the speaker) are comparing women and wives to livestock. Both writings are speaking of marriage as a transaction wherein a woman is bought and is constantly trying to trick men into a bad exchange.

However, More (the writer) does decide that in this Utopia, both women and men are exposed completely before they are married. While only the women is described as being likely to trick the man into “buying” her, the men are also exposed. Is More saying that this could happen with men tricking women into marriage as well? When he gives the example of going to buy a horse, he compares this to marrying a woman and this led me to believe he thought the same thing that Theophrastus did, but perhaps he is thinking this of both genders.

Is More being influenced by Theophrastus? Has he read Golden Book of Marriage? Has he read Chaucer and is he drawing this idea from him? Or was this an idea that a lot of men had at this time period?

I’m really not sure what to make of this connection. Does anyone else have any ideas?