The marriage represented in The Merchants Prologue and tale The story of Januarie's marriage to May and her subsequent infidelity with Damyan allows not only to bring out the vision of marriage by Chaucer, but also includes the opinions of contemporary writers. Chaucer allows his opinions to be made known as a narrator and his opinions could even be said to infiltrate the Merchant's speeches. Justin and Placebo's opinions are also taken into consideration as fictional characters also express their opinions on the institution of marriage. In this way, Chaucer allowed for a good deal of discussion about marriage. Chaucer places the character of Januarie in Pavia, which has a reputation for brothels. In this somewhat rough place, Januarie is engaged in a self-imposed race against time to find a wife. At 60, Januarie marries simply because she feels she must before she dies and believes that, as St. Paul says, marrying only to avoid sin is perfectly reasonable. Januarie wants a "hot wex" wife so he can bend her to his requests and needs. His friends would have liked to advise Januarie further on the choice of wife, but there was no time. Januarie sees marriage very much as a business transaction and uses his friends to scour the land for suitable women as it is a quicker way to find the best deal. Like Januarie, Justin is interested in the economic ideals of the union. However, he has further concerns about the age gap that will occur. He soon sees the possibility of infidelity on the part of his wife. Unlike Januarie who simply requires a beautiful face and a weak character, Justin advises the woman to have "Mo goode thewes than... middle of paper... nfidelity is wrong. The Merchant says little about the professional manner in which marriage has taken place, but he has more to say about the untrustworthy nature of women, his cynicism stemming from his own relationships manifests itself through his occasional selections of biblical references to deceitful women like Rebecca and Judith The woman, May, longs for an affair more emotional and believes he finds her with Damyan However, he has what appears to be a more typical view of male marriage they exchange, they must be disposed of in private. The commercial and unromantic nature of marriage seems to be prevalent in the minds of most men as women cannot be trusted unless they are in some kind of relationship. other than purely spiritual.