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Marriage Works in the Book of Margery Kempe Marriage plays a crucial role in The Book of Margery Kempe, which is a fifteenth-century, English autobiographical text by the book’s namesake, who was a mystical visionary and who probably had canonical aspirations. Early on in her account of her spiritual life, Margery describes Jesus and herself getting married in front of the entire heavenly community. This scene is a pivotal one in structuring the relationship between Margery and Jesus, Margery and her human husband John, and between Margery and the general world around her. More specifically, I contend, Margery utilizes this “spiritual” marriage as a means to enable her to live out the life she desires, a life which is primarily focused around enacting Margery’s pleasures in, for, and by Jesus. I hope to demonstrate how Margery, by becoming polyandric in a very specific way, played two dominant veins of fifteenth-century ideology of marriage off each other in order create a space to live out her desires. In short, Margery “carnalizes” Jesus and “spiritualizes” John precisely through engaging in the ritual of marriage.William E. Smith I am currently a doctoral student at Indiana University, Bloomington in the department of Religious Studies. I did my undergraduate degree at Albright College (B.A. History) and did my Masters of Theological Studies at Harvard University. My main academic interests are centered on Medieval and Early Modern Christianity, especially in relation to the histories of gender and sexuality. More specifically, I have been investigating the concept of Sponsa Christi and its deployment by certain women in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe. |
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