There are several OF fabliaux in which drunken, sexually aggressive,
sometimes widowed women either successfully get what they want or,
contrarily, are taken advantage of. In others, along with English cycles
plays, drunken alewives are carted off to hell by devils looking for
customers. The concatenation of features -- drunken, sexually
aggressive, entrepenurial, widowed -- tells us a lot about attitudes
toward women in the Middle Ages and about how mysogyny works.
Mark Amsler
U of Delaware
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