Margery Kempe
Soo Jin, Kang
Hwanhee Park
Studies in Medieval Literature
21 May 2015
Alison Gulley, Not Tonight Dear, I Have a Vow of Chastity: Sexual Abstinence and Marital Vocation in The Book of Margery Kempe, Publications of the Medieval Association of the Midwest, 1999. Print.
• One of Margery’s greatest transgressions seems to be that she wears white and represents a threat to the institution of marriage; she has a husband and fourteen children, yet she to all appearances abandoned them and dressed as a virgin in order to go on pilgrimage alone- clear evidence that she has eschewed a woman’s responsibilities and thus must have something against husbands and marriage. (133)
• Ironically, Margery’s defense confirms the authority of the established social order and she clearly desires that she herself be released from the bonds of marriage so that she might more perfectly pursue a different vocation as bride of Christ. (133)
• Instead, as I will argue in this article, not only do her attitudes towards marriage concur with contemporary doctrine, but her actions also actually encourage and reinforce the roles of wife and mother as a legitimate Christian vocation. (134)
• Margery lived and conflicting values; an anti-feminist and anti-matrimonial tradition continued on the one hand while at the same time the church was in the process of officially recognizing marriage as a sacrament. (134)
• Margery’s faith illustrated concerning marriage manifests the vocational qualities of Christian marriage; Firstly, their love is a marriage grounded in affection. Second, her feeling of guilt and desire for punishment are evidence that she believe lustful sex is sinful in spite of lawful marriage. (135)
→Thus, Margery’s word reveal a marriage that conforms to the standard teaching of the contemporary Church and society. (135)
• There is the duality of the church’s attitude toward sex and marriage; on the one hand, numerous theologians and canonists recommended avoiding marriage, because of
Hwanhee Park
Studies in Medieval Literature
21 May 2015
Alison Gulley, Not Tonight Dear, I Have a Vow of Chastity: Sexual Abstinence and Marital Vocation in The Book of Margery Kempe, Publications of the Medieval Association of the Midwest, 1999. Print.
• One of Margery’s greatest transgressions seems to be that she wears white and represents a threat to the institution of marriage; she has a husband and fourteen children, yet she to all appearances abandoned them and dressed as a virgin in order to go on pilgrimage alone- clear evidence that she has eschewed a woman’s responsibilities and thus must have something against husbands and marriage. (133)
• Ironically, Margery’s defense confirms the authority of the established social order and she clearly desires that she herself be released from the bonds of marriage so that she might more perfectly pursue a different vocation as bride of Christ. (133)
• Instead, as I will argue in this article, not only do her attitudes towards marriage concur with contemporary doctrine, but her actions also actually encourage and reinforce the roles of wife and mother as a legitimate Christian vocation. (134)
• Margery lived and conflicting values; an anti-feminist and anti-matrimonial tradition continued on the one hand while at the same time the church was in the process of officially recognizing marriage as a sacrament. (134)
• Margery’s faith illustrated concerning marriage manifests the vocational qualities of Christian marriage; Firstly, their love is a marriage grounded in affection. Second, her feeling of guilt and desire for punishment are evidence that she believe lustful sex is sinful in spite of lawful marriage. (135)
→Thus, Margery’s word reveal a marriage that conforms to the standard teaching of the contemporary Church and society. (135)
• There is the duality of the church’s attitude toward sex and marriage; on the one hand, numerous theologians and canonists recommended avoiding marriage, because of