Adulterous Medieval Times: The Lais Of Marie De France

The Adulterous Medieval Times Since the beginning of written history, marriage is portrayed as a sacred vow by almost all religions and peoples throughout the Earth while adultery is almost always looked upon as wrong. Marie de France was one of the few female writers in medieval times which made her very influential and well respected. In her book titled “The Lais of Marie de France,” she gives the reader a look into the affairs and adultery that was going on in the medieval courts. It seems Marie de France does not particularly agree with adultery, but her style of writing leads the reader to see that it is not so bad, depending on the situation. It is almost as if she separates the lais into two distinct groups. The first of which are
The next two are totally opposite. “Bisclavret” shows an adulterous relationship in a very negative way. In this lai, there is a happy couple that seem to enjoy each other but end up as enemies. The man is a werewolf but does not immediately share this information with his wife until she keeps bugging him and he feels guilty about not letting her know. After the wife learns of his secret, she refuses to sleep with him anymore and becomes the lover of another man. She then knows that all she has to do is hide his clothes when he is a werewolf and he will then stay as a werewolf. This is where the reader starts to feel true hatred toward this woman because she planned this betrayal on her husband only after he shared all his secrets with her. This lai is different because it is the woman who is being terrible to her husband. He told her all his secrets and instead of trusting him, she ultimately betrayed his trust. Bisclavret does get his revenge though. The King takes him in as a pet until he sees his wife and her new lover and bites her nose off. He gets his clothes back so he is human again, and the greatest revenge that Bisclavret gets is that his former wife’s children are all born without noses. The reader never feels any pity toward the woman even though she does get hurt by her husband because she had nothing but malicious intent against Bisclavret through the entire story. The ending is also like a moral to a fable to show that this behavior is not something anyone should ever