The Performance of Social Class

The story of 'patient Griselda' is a story about the politics of class and domestic abuse in the context of late-medieval marriage practices.The story concerns Griselda, daughter of humble village parents, who is selected to be the wife of Walter, a great lord.Despite his sincere love for her, and despite Griselda's devotion to him, he is determined to test her obedience, in the expectation that she will finally show her true colours and turn into a nagging shrew.The testing of Griselda is in the form of severe emotional abuse.Walter removes the two children born to Griselda and tells her they have been killed.He then sends her back to her father's house and declares that he will take another wife.Griselda, having spent years in grief and despair, still refrains from reproaching her husband but accepts his will submissively.Finally, when the husband sees that he cannot break Griselda, that she remains obedient and faithful to him no matter what he does to her, he returns the two children, now almost grown up, and restores her to her full position as his wife.And, as Chaucer says in the Clerk's

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• The English Text of the Ancrene Riwle

  A C Cawley, M M Day et al.•The Modern Language Review•1956

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• Patron or Matron? A Capetian Bride and a Vade Mecum for Her Marriage Bed

  Madeline H Caviness•Speculum•1993

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