The next two chapters address positions of desire in relation to issues of time, space, causation, chance and change: Chapter 5 focusing on the feminine, and Chapter 6 on the masculine. Like Chapter 4, this chapter stays with the low-style chanson de femme, represented this time by the chanson de malmariée, here making its first appearance. Chapter 6 returns to the ground of the pastourelle and the chanson. Of the chansons de malmariée, we shall examine, as with the chansons d'ami, those which Bec designates ‘songs with joyful content’ as opposed to those ‘of serious content’ (Lyrique française 74).

I have chosen the malmariée because her situation is made extreme by the presence, either in the foreground or the background, of a jealous, volatile and dangerous husband. More is at stake here than in the chanson d'ami. The joyful malmariée resembles the amie of the chanson d'ami at her most defiant and transgressive. Those representatives of the law who abound in the chanson d'ami – li losengier – may still be present, but the husband takes over the limelight as villain-in-chief. The maris is opposed to the ami, as Bec notes, ‘one negative, the other positive’ (Lyrique française 73).

They are well-placed for antithesis. There is only one of each, whereas the losengier are always represented as a group.