NMAG CNSTRUCTN WDOWHOOD VRGNTY M

To be a virgin or a widow never promised a stable, uniform status to a woman during the Middle Ages.

Rather, these positions were areas open to debate, constructions that did and still do create and question notions of gender roles: areas of power, and areas of disability.

For example, chastity is an apparent given for both positions, but the chastity involved may have a number of possible cultural meanings or uses.This study addresses facets of these two female positions in medieval literature: gender constructions of the body and what it means to make it visible, whether in admiration, torture, or martyrdom; issues of physicality and abjection; and creations of literary voices for women who write or create situations for them to be written about.

A group of female scholars examine the meanings behind widowhood and virginity both individually and in relation to each other.