Theme Of Ownership In The Reeve's Tale

Men should cherish women, not seek to own them. In The Reeve’s Tale it is not possible to escape realization that gender ownership exists. There are many situations in the tale that strips the two female characters of their identity. Symkyn’s wife and daughter, Malyne, lack their own voice making it easy for them to become victims of the patriarchal ideology, that females have to be obedient and subordinate. In The Reeve’s Tale, Geoffrey Chaucer initiates the theme of ownership which is used to objectify the two female characters by treating them like interchangeable pieces of property. The men mistreat Malyne and her mother further proving how powerless they are when seen as something owned. In their assumed, roles both women appear to be

/ … / For that Symkyn sholde in his blood allye” (3942-3945). Her lineage is as important to Symkyn as her intelligence and purity. In John F. Plummer’s review, “Hooly Chirches Blood: Simony and Patrimony in Chaucer’s ‘Reeve’s Tale’” he discusses how important this marriage is to Symkyn’s obsession with status, “The striking words in that picture are, it seems to me, the ‘panne of bras’ and ‘blood,’ words which refer not to the sin of the wife’s begetting but to her dowry and the notion of a blood alliance” (50). Further in the tale poet Chaucer damages Symkyn’s dream of passing on this prestige lineage when Aleyn takes Malyne’s virginity. Symkyn’s reaction is not to inquire about the well-being of his daughter, instead he only cares about the fact that a lower class citizen had the nerve to take Malyne’s virginity, “Who dorste be so boold to disparage / My doghter, that is come of swich lynage? (Chaucer 4271-4272). Symkyn overlooks the fact that his wife also participated in a sexual encounter with John. Plummer also picks up on this noticeable absence, “…Symkyn’s concern for his ‘estate,’ his pride in the blood lines of his wife, and his horror at discovering that his daughter, the proposed heir of her grandfather’s patrimony, has been ‘disparaged’ by one of the clerks” (52).

The two scholars view Malyne as a piece of property owned by her father, Symkyn. Therefore, it is this assumption that convinces Aleyn to take what is owed to him after Symkyn robs them of their grain, “Oure corn is stoln, sothly, it is na nay, / … / And syn I sal have neen amendement / Agayn my los, I will have esement” (4183-4186). This assumed physical ownership is now an unofficial legal transaction which makes it easy for Aleyn to rationalize his force in taking Malyne’s body. Tamarah Kohaanski elaborates, “Explorations of how Chaucer gives his characters more depth and a degree of individualism tend to discuss her [Malyne] only in passive terms: not as a character with attributes of her own, but as the object of other characters’ actions or concerns” (228). If Malyne was not considered Symkyn’s property Aleyn’s decision may have been different. But the scholars are not the only ones who view Malyne as property. Her grandfather, the town parson, is in control of her future, “In purpos was to maken hire his heir, / Bothe of his catel and his mesuage, / And straunge he made it of hir marriage” (Chaucer 3978-3980). Malyne has no say in who she marries since her grandfather is making the decisions for her by dictating the path her future will take. These two separate situations show how Malyne does not control her own life or have a voice further proving that in the eyes of the males in the tale, she is the property of a