The Medieval Woman: Unfaitful, Angelic, or Dominatrix?

In this story, the woman betrays her husband and indirectly causes the death of her lover, for when her husband discovers the affair, he slays the lover; before the lover dies, he tells his lady, "My sweet love, my friend, Your love's brought my life to an end. I told you it would happen thus: Your form and face have slain us- (Marie de France). She follows him to his city, where he gives her his sword to give to their son (that she is now pregnant with) once he is a grown man. Loyal to her lover's memory, some years later she, her husband, and her son visit an abbey where they see the tomb of her former lover. There she tells her son who his real father is and gives him the sword, which he uses to kill his step-father on the spot. .
             By one author we are given two different tales of cuckoldry, one in which we sympathize with the husband and one in which we sympathize with the wife. Bisclavret supports the idea that women are sly, deceitful and not to be trusted; a man should never tell his wife his deepest secrets. In Yonec, we take it to be the old man's fault that his wife cheated on him, because not only was he too old for her, but he also treated her badly by locking her away from sight in a tower. She was depressed and had no choice but to pray that a lover would find her. .
             Outside of marriage, women were revered in courtly love relationships. They were seen as lovely, fair, and angelic "your love would never forsake you, and if she did, it would be the end of the world. In Dante, we have a prime example of the courtly lover. He met Beatrice, the heroine of his Inferno, at the age of nine; she died when he was twenty-five. Five years later, Dante wrote La Vita Nuova, a collection of poems and comments written about Beatrice and his love for her, beginning with their first encounter and following through the years. He never got to be with Beatrice, he only worshipped from afar and immortalized her in his writing; Beatrice guides him through the Paradise of his Divine Comedy, and receives lines of praise in the first few cantos, such as when Virgil says, "I was among those dead who are suspended, when a lady summoned me.