It’s #FarcesFriday and our farces’ director is taking a look at the marriages that shape our two plays- how they they reflect medieval relationship tensions, and how they both reach beyond the stereotypes of this genre’s approach to marriages.

It’s easy to take it as a given that marriage in the Middle Ages was radically different from the partnerships of today. For starters, while we prioritise affection, companionability, and attraction, medieval marriage was far more about establishing the most advantageous ties in terms of power and property. In the western world of the 21st century, we expect that the choice of partners is ours; while arranged marriages were by no means universal in the Middle Ages, they also weren’t rare. And medieval gender roles were far less flexible than today. We benefit from the knowledge that if it really doesn’t work out, divorce exists as a feasible option, a safety hatch that people didn’t have five hundred years ago.

But at heart, the same basic premise must have been true: two people from different families are expected to spend a lifetime working together for mutual support and survival. Marriage doesn’t (with apologies to West Side Story) actually “make of our hearts one heart”- it’s still two individuals, with different histories, experiences, backgrounds, needs, wishes, and perspectives, trying to find a way to work together across those differences to make “one life” together, shared. Medieval women legally ceased to exist upon marriage, subsumed into their husbands’ identity, but both  remained individuals in the daily reality of life. 

These challenges and negotiations between partners have always been ripe for comedic uses. Mother-in-law jokes, marital misunderstandings, the fine line between fighting and flirting- these staples of modern sitcoms were well in place in the Middle Ages, including in our two farces. The Washtub is fully “marital comedy”. Pierre Pathelin is not built around marriage as a theme, but a Pathelin without a Guillemette is a very different storyline.

One of the things that made The Washtub appealing, when we were looking at different farces and trying to choose two, is the fact that it’s highly representative of a popular farce genre. A lot of farces are about marriages that aren’t harmonious. There are themes within the genre: the infidelity of a wife (men’s infidelity isn’t seen as funny, perhaps because it was somewhat permissible), or the extreme stupidity of a husband, are two common sub-genres. The Washtub leans towards the latter, but… is Jaquinot stupid? Or is he more clever than he initially lets on? This is one of the interesting questions an actor can ask; playing stupid and being stupid are wildly different things, and Jaquinot could do either, or both in turn. 

What definitely isn’t in the play, somewhat unusually, is extreme violence. Domestic abuse- and it comes from both parties in most plays- is rife in medieval farce; they’re often like a Punch & Judy show enacted with actual bodies, with an emphasis on the “punch” part. I do think there are ways of staging those plays that would take the violence into a comic place rather than an alarming one, but I like that The Washtub is a battle of wits rather than one of fists. Jaquinot and Jaquinette like to get the better of one another, and they both want to assert their own primacy within the relationship, but they don’t raise a hand against one another. (Indeed, if one does believe that Jaquinette is in danger within the washtub, not offering a hand is the entire joke!)

We don’t know what brought Jaquinot and Jaquinette together. As peasants, it’s just as possible that they made a marriage of their own desiring, as that it was arranged by their parents. (Certainly Jaquinette’s mother isn’t terribly impressed with her son-in-law! But if it was an arranged marriage, she may have had little say in the matter, with her husband conducting all negotiations.) This question might change how an actor approaches either of these characters- a marriage begun in romance that has soured as reality set in, is a very different situation from a permanent attachment than two people didn’t choose but are still stuck to work out. We do know that, as far as Jaquinette is concerned, Jaquinot isn’t pulling his own weight. “You’re leaving me to do everything, and we don’t even have good sex!” feels like a fairly modern complaint, but it’s Jaquinette’s as well, half a millennium ago. 

I think one of the things that makes the play interesting is not just its familiar feeling- these problems could be any couple’s problems, albeit they take it to an absurd place- but the fact that, for modern audiences, at least, our sympathies can be shared between both parties. Jaquinette’s complaints may be resonant with the reality of so many women’s lives! But we also enjoy seeing Jaquinot get his own back. And how you choose to end the play, in terms of staging, may give the opportunity to further balance the scales. (Medieval productions would not do this- they’d end with a man winning the day, “order” in the form of female subservience being restored. But we’re not medieval, and we can choose to nudge and wink while thumbing our noses at this ideal.)

Master Pierre Pathelin‘s take on marriage is completely different, and is a true rarity among medieval farces. They are, uniquely, partners. Guillemette isn’t fooled by her husband, as so many others are, and she’s happy to put him in his place. But one of the interesting things about her is that even when doing so, it feels almost affectionate. “Don’t try to kid me, mate, I know you. You’re a charlatan but you’re my charlatan,” seems to be Guillemette’s relationship with her husband. And when he needs her help in conniving Guillaume the Clothier that he, Pathelin, is ill and out of his wits, Guillemette jumps in and proves herself just as convincing a conniver as her husband. Moreover, and again unusually in the marital dynamic common of farce, Pierre asks her to help him. He includes his wife in his plans and knows he can’t succeed without her aid. It’s a shame we don’t get to see Guillemette with him in the courtroom scene; it’s not difficult to imagine that she would continue to find clever ways to assist in his machinations. 

We don’t get to know much about the dynamic shared between Pierre and Guillemette when they aren’t scheming. But, while it’s fair to note that Pierre’s success directly benefits his wife (he’s getting cloth for her dress, as well as his own clothing), it feel safe to assume that most women wouldn’t go along with their husband’s shenanigans if they didn’t, fundamentally, feel a degree of partnership. If theirs is not a marriage of equals, it is at least a marriage of equally clever, scheming, and unscrupulous individuals, well-matched in their talents for duping others. They’ll lie to anyone but eachother. And that, in the grand tradition of villainous couples, is kind of romantic in its own strange way!

Both of our plays give a relatively more benign spin on marriage than the average farce; I won’t pretend they’re truly representative. But I’d like to hope that they’re more representative of medieval marriage than the more typical farces. Pathelin and Guillemette genuinely seem to like one another- they’ve figured out how to get along and work together for the common cause of their life together. Jaquinot and Jaquinette are likely much younger, and they’re still negotiating what the rest of their marriage will look like. Let us hope that they can arrive at a similar place in time, and share a life of real partnership, whether it is shared chores or chicanery!