About the Author

Around 1393 a man in Paris whom we remember only as the Goodman of Paris got married. We think he was in his sixties and his wife was in her twenties. The Goodman of Paris set out to tell his young wife what he thought a marriage should be by writing a very strange book for her. It takes the form of a dialogue, and covers the Goodman’s opinions on marriage as it connects to religion, chastity, wifely obedience, thoughtfulness, discretion, gardening, household management and what to do when your husband is wrong. Each topic is liberally illustrated with stories from the Bible, the Classics, and from the Goodman’s own experience. Curiously, the book then completely changes direction, going from marriage advice to a cookbook with such topics as “freshwater fish” and “divers ways of preparing eggs”. Throughout the book as in the selection below, the Goodman of Paris comes across as a kind and tolerant man, a man who understands human frailty.

On Loyalty in a Marriage

There was once a great and wise man that his wife left to go with another young man to Avignon, and when this young man tired of her he left her, as such young men are oftentimes wont to do. She was poor and without comfort and she became a common woman, because she had nothing to live on. Then it came to the knowledge of her husband and he was in full great distress and made the following plan. He mounted his wife’s two brothers on horses and gave them money and told them go seek their sister that was even as a common woman in Avignon, and told to them clothe her in sackcloth, and hang her with cockle shells after the custom of pilgrims coming from St James [Santiago de Compostela], and mount her suitably and when she was a day’s journey from Paris, send her to him. They set forth at once and the wise man spread abroad and told everyone how that he was full glad of heart because his wife was returning in good State, gramercy [from the French ‘grand-merci’, meaning roughly the same thing as ‘thank God’], from the place where he had sent her, and when they asked him whither he had sent her, he answered that he had lately sent her to St James in Galicia, to make a pilgrimage on his behalf, that his father had laid upon him on his deathbed. All were full astonished at his words, seeing what men had hitherto said of her. When his wife was come to within a day’s journey of Paris, he caused his house to be adorned with branches and green herbs and called together his friends to ride and meet his wife. He rode at their head to her, and they kissed, and both fell to weeping, and had great joy of each other. He caused his wife to be warned that she should speak happily and proudly and boldly to all and to himself and before the household, and that when she came to Paris she should visit all her neighbours one after another and show them all a joyful countenance. And so the good man came back and kept his wife’s honour.

And in God’s name, if a man keep his wife’s honour and a wife blame her husband or suffer him to be blamed, either covertly or openly, she herself hath blame thereby and with reason; for either he is wrongly blamed or he is rightly blamed; if he is wrongly blamed, then should she fiercely avenge him; if he be rightly blamed, then ought she graciously to cover and sweetly to defend him, for certain it is that if the blame remain and be not wiped out, the worse her husband is the worse shall be her own report and she shall share the blame because she is married to one so wicked. For even as he that plays chess holds his piece in his hand for a long time before he sets it down, in order that he may advise him that he may set it in a safe place, even so ought a wife to hold herself ready to consider and choose and set herself in a good place. And if she does not so, it shall be a reproach unto her and she must share her husband’s blame; and if there is a problem for him, she should cover and conceal it with all her might. And it behooves the husband to do as much for his wife, as is said above and shall be said again.

(From the Eileen Power translation)