I found myself hurrying through some of the chapters, eager for the husband du jour to perish because Eleanor kept finding herself (putting herself) into bad situations. But the book had a lovely “texture” and I can easily imagine a cinema adaptation.
It’s sad that hundreds of years later many women face similar power inequities and economic struggles. At least we have better plumbing these days…
Yes, the whole Chaucer rape accusation and Eleanor’s reaction confused me. At the end of the book, Chaucer acknowledged he had a son as a result of the alleged rape. I wasn’t sure what we were supposed to take from that information.
Did anyone find this book humorous? A few of the reviews I read talked about how funny It was and how the reviewer laughed out loud while reading it. The only time I laughed out loud was when the girls told Eleanor they were prostituting and said they only “did it with priests” (because) “They’re cleaner than the others…” Other than that one time, I did not find it humorous. Am I being curmudgeonly?
Hanging my head, nd just popping in to say I didn’t read this selection, yet, and following the discussion to see if it’s worthwhile. I did buy the ebook, so there’s that motivation.
Carry on……
Eleanor’s tell-it-like-it-is delivery was often amusing, so I sometimes smiled, but her circumstances were almost always dire, so I never laughed.
I didn’t ever laugh in the book. I found it overall too grim, especially the situations people were finding themselves in.
I find it tough when people seem trapped in bad situations. It was too bad that Eleanor chose to remain in an abusive marriage with Jankin after he beat her.
So many brutes in the book. I guess this was and is how life is for some. I’m grateful my world has not been populated with brutes and violence.
No, I did not laugh.
Whether Chaucer actually abducted or raped a female, or just attempted it, it would be a violent act or attempt against a female. Perhaps it was common at the time, but that doesn’t really make it much better imho.
Just like we tell our kids, one has to make good choices and not do what they want or what is convenient (like the priest who tried to rape 12 year old Eleanor).
Eleanor’s colorful language was sometimes entertaining, although I did tire of the “q” word.
I think she would have enjoyed the list of historical euphemisms in this article, but the dates of each indicate that they came after her time. She made up a few of her own, which I won’t repeat here. 
History of Prostitution: Prostitutes Through the AgesAmsterdam Red Light District
Something interesting, in general, about the prostitution business:
It was actually the Victorian writer, Rudyard Kipling, who first coined the phrase ‘the world’s oldest profession’ in his short story, On the City Wall (1898).
The tale opens with the immortal line “Lalun is a member of the most ancient profession in the world”. Since then, the expression has fallen into common parlance as a historical truth.
But, sex work is not the oldest profession in the world; anthropologists have found no evidence of selling sex within numerous (so called) primitive societies. The northern hill tribes of Thailand had no word for prostitution, and Victorian explorers were surprised to discover that the Dyak people of Borneo had ‘no word to express that vice’, and when Christian missionary, Lorrin Andrews, translated the bible into Hawaiian in 1865, he had to invent new words to teach the islanders about the concept of sexual shame, and infidelity. But, wherever you find money, you also find sex work.
One thing I’ve never understood is why people tolerate violence against themselves and others when they have other options. Didn’t Eleanor have options when she encountered violence from her 5th husband? She just never availed herself of any of those options.
I’m not sure Eleanor really had any viable options. Beating one’s wife was probably considered fairly acceptable behavior in the Middle Ages and not anything society would have stepped in to rescue her from. Her only safety net was Geoffrey and he was often dealing with troubles of his own, both financial and domestic.
In the end, her only escape was to run away, change her name, lose her fortune, live in poverty and dabble in prostitution. Even today, economics is one of the driving factors behind why women stay with abusive husbands.
Given such high stakes in choosing a good husband, it’s even sadder that Eleanor was unable to be more restrained and objective in choosing a good spouse, since it affected her and everyone she cared about.
This inability to choose a good husband is what drove me crazy in the book. After her first husband, she did have options. She was a wealthy woman with options. She didn’t have to settle on the first man to offer his hand, but she always did. She talked about the power of her queynte over men, but it had as much power over her.
One would think that having failed twice out of her 3 independent tries to get married, she would’ve had the sense to restrain herself for the fifth time. There was an unseemly rush to get married and some deliberate obtuseness in not connecting the dots more quickly regarding her conversation with Jankin and the convenient death of Simon.
And yet, in real life this scenario plays out repeatedly. Often these women have a need to be needed and/or other needs. In this case, Eleanor had Alyson and others who loved and cared about her but none could get her to be more cautious and prudent. She didn’t need to rush into these relationships but nevertheless she seemed to have some headlong rush.
Yes. I agree. Women and men sometimes pick the same type of person over and over again for relationships, even if that type hasn’t worked in the past. As someone posted earlier, Eleanor is flawed. The flaws make her human…a very frustrating human.
Eleanor’s best husbands were those who were chosen for her (Fulk) or who chose her for practical reasons (Mervyn). The ones she was enamored of and chose because she thought them charming or virile (Simon de la Pole, Jankin) turned out to be duds. She had terrible taste – a walking argument for arranged marriages.
Arranged marriages can work if the material being worked with is good (people are being honest, nonviolent, no addictions, want the marriage to work, enter it freely). Even then, it’s a gamble and it may work or not work, depending on the parties involved.
There are many bad arranged marriages.
In a way, though, Eleanor needs to marry, right? Men shied away from her and lovely woven items when she had no husband. She needed to run her business under the auspices of father or husband. Allowed to spin the wool, yes, but not to weave and sell, where she could earn enough for support.
She probably had less of a choice to marry or not than we can credit her with.
Maybe but surely there were other men who weren’t violent or worse. Widowed women had some rights and options—more than single never married ones.