Η κακοπαντρεμένη [The haplessly married girl]

The haplessly married girl or A rhyme about the old man and the girl is an anonymous, satirical and instructive poem of the 15^th or early 16^th century, whose theme revolves around the mismatched marriage, both in terms of age and in terms of social status, between a young lady and an old man, who offers clothes, money, even property as ‘dowry’ for the marriage. Narrated (perhaps even written) by an experienced and Rabelaisian woman, the poem is addressed mainly to single girls, warning them of the consequences of such a marriage.

The filthy, frail and sexually impotent old husband, the bitter experiences of the young woman whose only hope is to become a widow soon, and the pleasures of love between the two young lovers constitute the individual aspects of a popular literary motif with a long tradition. Contrary to the belief which identifies old age with wisdom, the old man in love is one of the comic personae of Menander, Plautus and Erasmus, while the complaints of the young woman who is forced into marriage with an old man is also a familiar theme of Boccaccio and French and Italian medieval ‘songs of the badly wedded lady’. Equally widespread is the pictorial theme of ‘mismatched couples’, particularly during the 16^th and early 17^th century, in Germany and the Netherlands.

A van Gemert, emeritus professor at the university of Amsterdam, is the book’s editor.