Description
Book SynopsisTrade Review"Feminist scholars have long used conduct books to illustrate the brutally patriarchal nature of medieval marriage. Glenn Burger's
Conduct Becoming strikes a new, counterintuitive note." *
London Review of Books *
"Attending to a diverse range of texts broadly characterized as conduct literature Glenn D. Burger constructs a layered and nuanced argument for the emergence of a new medieval subject, 'the good wife,' along with new models for married relations in the later Middle Ages . . . The full weight of Burger's argument unfolds gradually across the chapters, but it rewards its readers with its attentiveness to the many potential ways in which narratives interact with their readers, another dialogic relationship that calls for a dynamic, negotiated, and relational understanding. Burger offers such an understanding here." *
The Journal of Religion *
"Much has been published about conduct literature in the past twenty years, but I don't know of a book that covers a similar range of texts and makes such a large intellectual argument. This new model of the good wife focuses primarily on the married lay woman whose attitudes and activities as a member of a marriage and a household have significant roles to play in the wider society." * Kathleen Ashley, University of Southern Maine *
