Happy marriages affect the morals of the participants

While reading the Franklin's Tale, I noticed some major similarities to the Merchant's Tale. Obviously, the tales are very different in their outcomes and the morality of the characters, but bear with me here:

First we have the Knight:

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The Knight in the Merchant's tale, January is old, jealous, and shallow. The Knight in the Franklin's Tale is completely different. Arveragus is respectful to his wife, loves her, and gives her all of the freedom that she could want. These characters seem to be completely opposite each other on the spectrum of likability (at least to me.)

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Then we have the wives:

May is young, beautiful, and doesn't seem to have much say in the marriage. Dorigene has all the freedom she wants, is very much in love with her husband, and is virtuous and caring. Again, not much of a similarity exists between these two women.

Next we have the squires. Damian and Aurelius are the most similar of all the pairs. They are both deeply in love (or in lust, however you interpret it) with the wives of the Knights they serve under. They both confront the wives about their feelings (Damian through a letter, and Aurelius face to face.)

The general situation of these two stories is also very similar. The squire is in love with the Knight’s wife, they make their feelings known, and through circumstances, whether the wives want to sleep with them or not, they seem to have won who they are after. The location where both couples are to have sex is even the same: the garden.

However, these stories are completely different stories. In the Merchant’s Tale May and Damian have sex in a pear tree, and lie to January about it. In the Franklin’s Tale, Dorigene is completely honest with Arveragus and he encourages her to keep her word and when Aurelius sees how miserable she is, he lets her go.

Why are these stories so similar yet different? The characters in the Franklin’s Tale are obviously more virtuous than the characters in the Merchant’s Tale. What makes them more virtuous? They are honest with each other, especially in the case of Dorigene and Arveragus, and they keep the promises that are made to the other characters until they are released from the promise. These two ideas are what ultimately make these characters more virtuous.

I propose that the Franklin heard the Merchant’s Tale and was unsatisfied with how things came about. Many of the ideals seen in the Franklin’s Tale are opposite of the Merchants.

Arveragus and Dorigene have a love that was built on mutual respect and on subordination on the part of Arveragus. He loves her passionately and pursues her and eventually wins her love. He then gives her ultimate freedom to do whatever she wants. Compare this to the marriage of January and May. January decided one day that he wanted the perfect wife and searched for one like searching for an object. Once they married, he treated her awfully, and was constantly jealous and controlling.

Dorigene’s agreement with Aurelius (though she had no idea it would be fulfilled) was that if he moved the rocks, she would love him most. The rocks were likely to have killed her husband and she was making this request out of love.

May was trapped in a marriage she mostly likely did not want to be in in the first place, with a man who told her he could do anything to her, and was constantly controlling and watching her every move. She did what she did out of desperation. One man treated her lovingly, and she probably fell for him instantly because she was so starved for that kind of attention.

Dorigene, in a happy marriage, was virtuous. May, in an unhappy marriage, was not. I believe the Franklin is proposing that a happy, respectful, and equal marriage will produce virtuous people.

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Marriage and Manipulation

"The Clerk's Tale" should elicit a strong emotional response from the reader because its protagonist is a good and innocent person who suffers repeatedly to satisfy her husband's obsession.  At the behest of his people, Walter, the marquis agrees to wed and provide them a successor of his lineage. His stipulation that he marry a woman of his choosing, no matter her social rank, is an interesting one. Walter’s reasoning for this seems to come from his belief that “under lowe degree / Was ofte vertu hid…” (425-426). Therefore, it makes sense that he chooses the low-born Grisilde. Walter also seems to be interested in Grisilde because he sees in her an ability or willingness to be completely subservient to him.  In a statement to her about what he requires of a wife he says:

I say this, be ye redy with good herte

To al my lust, and that I frely may,

As me best thinketh, do yow laugh or smerte,

And nevere ye to grucche it, night ne day,

And eek whan I say “ye, ne say nat “nay”,

Walter goes on to have her swear to the “oath,” and she does. After they marry he seems to invoke the right to cause her to feel pain by taking from her their first born child and telling her it will be killed. She does not flinch, but rather tells him that she and the child are his to do with as he pleases. After Walter takes her second child, a boy, she reacts in very much the same way. Then, when he informs her that she will be replaced with another she maintains her stoic demeanor and only asks that he “ne prike with nor tormentinge / This tender mainden, as ye han don mo” (1038-1039). Her reactions to the trials and tribulations created for her by Walter are shocking. Perhaps what is equally shocking is the fact that Walter has lied about the children’s deaths and the new wife to learn, through Grisilde's reactions, of her true character and devotion to him.  

This tale remind me of this quote by Martin Luther King, Jr.:

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.