“The Treatise of the Two Married Women and the Widow”

The Tretis of the Tua Marit Wemen and the Wedo is the title of a medieval poem written by William Dunbar , which, though little known, is of considerable psychological interest. It consists of the statements of three women about their experiences of conjugal relationships. A setting to their accounts is provided by a short epilogue and prologue. The poem opens:

After providing a highly ornate description of the surroundings, Dunbar announces how he hears voices on the other side of a high hawthorn hedge. He hurriedly conceals himself among its thorns and leaves and from this hiding place he sees three ladies—the two married women and the widow—sitting in a garden shelter where they are enjoying a meal, drinking wine and telling stories. He describes them in the pictorial terms conventional to the period, e.g., “ white, seemly and soft as the sweet lilies,” and tells how after they had drunk deeply of the white wine and poured out their talk “then they spoke more pointedly and did not mince their words.” The widow invites the two wives to discuss frankly their feelings toward their husbands, and to give their honest opinions about “the blessed bond of matrimony.” Having done so, the widow then recounts her own experiences of married life.

The epilogue tells of the laughter which greeted the widow's autobiography or “legend of her life” and how after further drinks, the women danced till dawn when they “raked home to rest.” The breaking of day is depicted in a more natural manner than that of the prologue and the language succeeds in conveying a sense of