The prose tract entitled Hali Meidenhad (Holy
Maidenhood) is a homily intended chiefly to encourage young women to enter religious life by
dissuading them from matrimony. The treatise,
written in the West Midlands in England between
about 1190 and 1225, survives in two manuscripts,
both of which also contain the text of the piece
known as SAWLES WARDE, and some of the SAINTS’
LIVES that belong to what is known as the KATHERINE GROUP.
The sophisticated style of Hali Meidenhad,
characterized by the use of native phrases and alliterative passages, has been compared to that of
the ANCRENE WISSE, but unlike that moderate and
humane text, Hali Meidenhad reflects an extreme
and abusive tone that is contemptuous of the very
idea of marriage. As such it is in the tradition of
JEROME’s fifth-century tirade Against Jovinian, who
had dared argue that the celibate life was not necessarily superior to matrimony.
The author bases his homily on a single text,
Psalm 45.10: “Hearken, O daughter, and consider,
and incline thine ear; forget also thine own people,
and thy father’s house.” From here, he fashions his
argument as a struggle against the devil himself,
who hates virginity because it was through the Virgin Mary that he lost his sovereignty over humankind. Young women should not pursue earthly
marriage, but rather the much more spiritually satisfying marriage with Christ, the fruit of which will
be virtue rather than children. The author paints a
sometimes sardonically humorous, sometimes disgusting picture of marriage, from the woman’s suffering indignities in bed to the discomfort of
pregnancy to the annoyances of housework. Most
striking is the author’s description of a woman’s
plight in an abusive relationship, which he seems
to regard as not atypical:
His looking at you terrifies you; his hateful
merriment and his rude behavior make you
shudder. He chides you and bickers with you
and scolds you shamefully; he mocks you as a
lecher does his whore; he beats you and mawls
[sic] you as his purchased slave and his family
servitor. Your bones ache, and your flesh
smarts; your heart swells within you from sore
mortification, and your face flushes outwardly
from anger.
(Dunn and Byrnes 1973, 101)
The homily holds out one escape from this kind
of life: the convent—marriage to Christ, the perfect spouse.
The blessed maiden who as God’s daughter and
the spouse of his Son has excluded herself completely from such servitude need not endure
anything like this. So, blessed maiden, forsake all
such sorrow in exchange for an exceptional reward, as you ought to do without any payment.