In this way he becomes guilty of the sin of cowardice, as Gawain himself names it when his failings are revealed to him by the Green Knight. Gawain has traded the protection of a holy figure and his patron, the Virgin Mary, for a sorceress' protection. Viewed in the ultra-Christian perspective of the author, Gawain is trading divine protection for small comfort under the protection of black magic, in effect making a deal with the devil. In addition to this, Gawain's acceptance of the girdle weakens the feudal system by forcing him to conceal it from his host and in the process break his agreement with Bertilak. While he has upheld his bargain with the Lady, and performed with spotless courtesy in the game of courtly love, he has had to break his word and disobey the Lord to do it, in a sense choosing Eve's disobedience over the obedience of Mary. Here the poet most strongly criticizes the changing face of chivalry; in his opinion the game of courtly love will ultimately break the male social bonds which hold feudalism together. Only the traditional Christian hierarchies, from which chivalry was born, can provide the framework with which chivalry can survive. This is reinforced by the final exchange between Gawain and the Green Knight where the poet shows the way he feels feudalism should work--by banishing courtly love and women from the code of chivalry. The men re-appropriate the power the women seemed to hold in order to support the male social order. First we see that the outcome of the beheading game rests on his performance of the exchange of winnings game. Second, the Green Knight reveals that the Lady acted at his behest and thereby appropriates the power she seemed to hold. Later in the scene, he reveals that Morgan sent him to Arthur's castle in the guise of the Green Knight; however, by the time he reveals this, he has already appropriated the plan for his own purposes. It is also possible that the exchange of winnings game, ...
