Student Question
How do "The Miller's Tale," Beowulf, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight present the position of women and the function of marriage in society?
Quick answer:
While women and marriage are presented in a more traditional manner in Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, in "The Miller's Tale," men and women are equally cruel and amoral, and marriage is mocked as an institution doomed to fail.
Regarding the social position of women, Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight are both more traditional in their presentation of the subject than the comparatively subversive "The Miller's Tale."
The two major female characters in Beowulf are Queen Wealthow and Grendel's mother. Wealthow is a rather minor character in the grand scheme, leaving no impact upon the action of the narrative. She is presented as a good queen and wife, playing hostess to the warriors in the mead hall. By contrast, Grendel's mother is a monstrous figure who preys upon King Hrothgar's people after Beowulf slays Grendel. She is an active character and presented as even stronger than her son, but she is also undoubtedly a figure of evil. Juxtaposed against the kind but passive Wealthow, it is clear that the poem's conception of a good woman is one who lives supporting men and making little fuss.
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Gawain and the Green Knight's two major female characters initially strike one as similar to the good woman/bad woman pairing in Beowulf: the ugly, aged Morgan le Fay is almost always at the side of the young and beautiful Lady Bertilak. Anyone familiar with Arthurian myth knows Morgan is a dangerous sorceress, but the "good" wife character turns out to be ambiguous in her characterization.
Like Wealthow, she plays the good wife and hostess, but she also attempts to seduce Gawain multiple times. She is active in testing his virtue, giving her a more vital presence in the narrative than Wealthow ever had in Beowulf. She turns out to be a good character in the end because she was collaborating with her husband in testing Gawain. So, she is a touch more subversive a character than Wealthow, though she ultimately plays the socially ordained role of helpmate to her husband. Morgan is different: her relation to the Bertilak couple is unclear, but her desire to frighten Guenevere, in this story presented as a noble queen, does frame her as a subversive, threatening presence.
"The Miller's Tale" has no two-woman dichotomy: the major female presence is Alison, the carpenter's gorgeous wife. She is certainly not a helpmate like Wealthow and Lady Bertilak since she views her much older husband in contempt. She would appear to have more in common with "monstrous" women like Grendel's mother or Morgan in that she presents a threat to social order: she disobeys her husband, uses her power (in this case sexual) without consulting male authority, and commits adultery. Yet, unlike Grendel's mother, she is not exiled from society nor punished for her transgressions. In the end, the male authority Joseph is humiliated and Alison escapes retribution.
Of course, "The Miller's Tale" is not arguing that women are superior to men or even necessarily calling for social equality. However, it is a story in which a female character has power, uses it as she sees fit, and exercises agency without being punished for it. The Miller's universe is an amoral one in which both men and women play their dirty games with glee. Everyone but Joseph is terrible, and everyone but Joseph evades punishment, no matter their gender. If anything, the tale's take on the sacred bond of marriage is even more subversive. Unlike Beowulf and Sir Gawain, "The Miller's Tale" does not present marriage positively: Alison is not a helpmate, and Joseph is a foolish cuckold rather than master of the house.