1 The mutual affection between the spouses was not necessarily excluded 1 To support husband's dominion over his wife, all the possible authorities were quoted, including the convenient fragments of the Old and New Testaments, church fathers, and other classical Whatever the social level, however, on top of this hierarchical institution stands an omnipresent, male householder, who is " in control " of household inhabitants, including his wife, as well as responsible for business matters and commodities. At each social level, the household and the family are the main units of economic activity and the chief channels for transmission of wealth higher up the scale they additionally provide the grounds for political alliances as well as patronage and sponsorship of artistic, dramatic and literary activity. Heywood's carnivalesque domestic sphere in A mery play between Johan Johan, the husband, Tyb his wife, and Sir Johan the priest, in which the sanctioned order of things is reversed and where no laws which should govern an exemplary family unit apply, challenges the key concepts associated with the household in the late Middle Ages, when it is not so much an architectural as a social structure. This paper examines how the official ideology of household is subverted in the play, deals with carnivalesque empowerment of the female character which results from this subversion, shows how female rebellion is counterattacked with misogynist implications of the play, and, finally tries to hint at political implications the interlude might have had despite its entertaining and comic qualities. The play centres on the motif of eternal triangle, Tyb being at the heart of the whole intrigue and responsible for disrupting order within the household. The very title of John Heywood's interlude A mery play between Johan Johan, the husband, Tyb his wife, and Sir Johan the priest (in print by 1533) suggests a fabliaux-like, farcical intrigue, which can be enacted by three characters only: a henpecked husband, a shrewish wife and a parish priest, i.e.
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