The Good Wife's Guide (Le Ménagier de Paris)In the closing years of the fourteenth century, an anonymous French writer compiled a book addressed to a fifteen year old bride, narrated in the voice of her husband, a wealthy, aging Parisian. The book was designed to teach this young wife the moral attributes, duties, and conduct befitting a woman of her station in society, in the almost certain event of her widowhood and subsequent remarriage. The work also provides a rich assembly of practical