ANTHONY COMSTOCK, CHAUCER’S LITHE-AS-A-WEASEL ALISOUN, AND PERSONAL CHOICE

AN ENLIGHTENED ENGLISH TEACHER ENCOURAGED US to master the first lines of Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales—in Middle English: “Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote/ The droghte of March hath perced to the roote…. And specially from every shires ende/ Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,/ The holy blisful martir for to seke/ That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seeke.” 

Bless Mr. Wilson’s heart. I remember its lyrical Middle English entirety to this day.

Anthony Comstock? Because of this anti-vice activist, U.S. Postal Inspector, and secretary of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, it was (and questionably remains) illegal to send Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales through the U.S. mail.

That is, the prohibition is based on the Comstock Act of 1873, which Wikipedia notes, though “Amended multiple times since initial enactment, most recently in 1996,” the Comstock Act could have significance in personal matters such as the use of “mifepristone and misoprostol… used in 63% of the abortions performed in the United States.”

This, Wikipedia recounts, was because the high-minded Anthony Comstock “opposed obscene literature, abortion, contraception, masturbation, gambling, prostitution, and patent medicine.”

Wikipedia continues, “The terms comstockery and comstockism refer to his extensive censorship campaign of materials that he considered obscene, including birth control advertised or sent by mail. He used his positions in the U.S. Postal Service and the NYSSV (in association with the New York police) to make numerous arrests for obscenity and gambling.”

Image from the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, 1873, dissolved 1950.

How could such absurdities occur in the 42nd United States Congress in 1873? What about today’s 119th U.S. Congress? 

Today’s Comstock Act. Read no further than “Rep. Becca Balint Reintroduced the Stop Comstock Act to Repeal Antiquated Law that Could be Misused to Implement National Abortion Ban,” March 12, 2025.

Yes, that’s 2025.

The Press Release recounts, “Today, Rep. Becca Balint (VT-AL) is joined by Reps. Scanlon (PA-05) and Watson Coleman (NJ-12) to introduce the Stop Comstock Act in response to clear Republican intent to misuse the antiquated and unconstitutional statute, the Comstock Act, to prohibit the mailing of medication abortion and other materials used in abortion procedures.” 

Weaponizing Comstock. “The Comstock Act has long been considered obsolete,” says Katie O’Connor, Senior Director of Federal Abortion Policy at the National Women’s Law Center Action Fund. “But anti-abortion extremists are now trying to weaponize the Act to criminalize abortion and enforce offensive, antiquated notions of morality and gender roles.”

Wikipedia recounts, “On February 2, 2023, twenty Republican State attorneys general issued a letter to CVS and Walgreens against the mailing of mifepristone and misoprostol in combination, citing the Comstock Act. This letter was in response to announcements by CVS and Walgreens in January 2023 that the pharmacy chains would begin processing mifepristone-misoprostol prescriptions. In March 2023, Walgreens announced it would not distribute mifepristone-misoprostol in combination within those twenty states.” 

Wikipedia also notes, “In a February 2024 interview with The New York Times, Jonathan F. Mitchell, an attorney active in the anti-abortion movement and a former Solicitor General of Texas, expressed an optimistic viewpoint about the Comstock Act’s applicability to abortion: “We don’t need a federal [abortion] ban when we have Comstock on the books.” However, Mitchell nonetheless hoped that Donald Trump would not discuss the issue: “[I hope Trump] doesn’t know about the existence of Comstock, because I just don’t want him to shoot off his mouth.” 

Chaucer’s Medieval Bawdiness. Given Trump’s acknowledged cultural tastes, you’d think he’d like bawdy bits of The Canterbury Tales. I’d certainly recommend “The Miller’s Tale” and “The Wife of Bath’s Tale.”  

The Wife of Bath, from “The Wife of Bath—You Go, Grrl.”

No, on second thought, Trump would probably recoil at the Wife of Bath’s streak of medival feminism.

As for “The Miller’s Tale,” I delight in Alisoun being “gent” as a “wezele.” And the tale’s commotion concerning a Biblical-style flood is a hoot. ds

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2025