The Wife Of Bath

that he never went to hell (272). She clearly valued sex as the most important attribute of a husband for, “…in our bed he was so fresh and gay….Heaven knows whenever he wanted it- my belle chose-, thought he had beaten me in every bone…”(272) Even though her final husband had beaten her, because he was good in bed with her she felt she loved him the best of them all (272). Clearly, The Wife of Bath valued three things in her marriages, sex, power, and money. In her tale we find that power is an important role to women in marriage. A knight, after raping a women is spared by a queen (282) but in order to save his life, he has one year (283) to find, “What is the thing that women most desire”(282)? After searching, he finds no answer but on his way home finds an old women who promises she will save him, he must promise to do what she asks of him after however, and he agrees (285). When he and the old lady meet with the queen, he exclaimed, “A women want’s the self-sovereignty over her husband as over her lover, and master him; he must not be above her” (286). This answer is perfectly inline with The Wife of Baths views, she always wants to be more powerful than her husband. When the old lady says he must marry her, he protests but soon she offers him two choices, he can have her be old and ugly till she dies, but loyal, or she can be young and pretty and take chance that she might not remain faithful (291). He gives his answer to be that she may choose, thus giving her the

The Wife of Bath pursued husbands in a way that did not benefit both sides of the marriage. She clearly admits that she does not show shame from having sexual relations with many different men, as she simply desires sex and riches from wealthy men. Medieval civilizations did not consider this behavior appropriate, as it conflicted with ideas of courtly love and God’s word. She states that, “I am dominated by the planet Venus in my senses, and my heart is dominated by the planet Mars” (Chaucer 626). This statement supports that her body and desires only seek pleasure, while her true soul remains conflicted, unable to truly love. At the end of each marriage she appears as the one who reigns victorious and still willing to remarry: “I boast of one thing for myself; in the end I had the better in every way” (430). The Wife does not have respect for her multiple wedded spouses, and would rather remain happy when they leave her than to flood herself with emotion of sadness.

The Wife of Bath begins the prologue to her tale by boasting of her experience in marriage. She has married five men already, and ignores the idea that this is a reproach to Christian principles. She is merely adhering to the Christian principle of "be fruitful and multiply." She cites the case of King Solomon, who had multiple wives, and tells the group that she welcomes the opportunity for her sixth husband. She also points out that Jesus never lays down a law about virginity, and essentially states that we have the parts for sex and should use them as such. The Pardoner objects to the Wife of Bath's musings on marriage, but she decides to tell

She has strong, stoic features about her that make her stand out greatly. She knows that it is said that God only comes to one wedding and disagrees with multiple marriage partners. However, the Wife of Bath does not care; she believes that she is young and fair and needs to take advantage of it. She justifies herself

In the beginning of the prologue, the Wife of Bath implements herself as an authority of marriage because she has been married five times. She is justifying her experiences against biblical authority, and interprets scripture in her own distinct way. Given the time period in which this narrative is being told, the biblical references that she uses were necessary in providing a valid argument. Women did not have much say in that time; therefore, anything they said did not interest the public. She uses those biblical references to make her points interesting, to make people pay attention to what she has to say, even if her references are not all plausible. The genre leans more towards a confessional, but the problem is that she defends her sinful

She is very often in some sort of relationship. While, women typically were seen to be submissive to their husbands, the Wife of Bath is not. She is outspoken, manipulative, and never passive. She notices that her fourth husband is cheating on her and she is too proud to be idle and not do anything about it. As a result of each marriage and her “experience” that she often alludes to, the Wife of Bath learns to be independent and to fend for herself. Although she is often bound to a contract of marriage, she does whatever she needs to do to look out for herself. In fact, the Wife of Bath takes pride in this independence and

The prologue of this tale showed that the Wife of Bath was not seen as an upstanding woman, nor did she desire to be seen as one. She portrayed feminism, almost as soon as she began speaking in the prologue, she explained that she had gone through five husbands, and she was on the look out for a sixth. She also admitted that she married for money:

The Wife of Bath, a modern liberated woman, is one of the more refreshing characters among some of the pilgrims. Her doctrine on marriage and a woman’s place invokes contempt from some of the devout followers of the Church, namely, the Parson and Clerk; she’s bold and confident, especially for a woman in medieval times. However, while the Wife of Bath is a confident and intelligent woman, she is power hungry and will use whatever means necessary to obtain control; her doctrine on marriage is reflected in the marriage of the knight and the transformed old woman in the tale.

In The Canterbury tales, Chaucer uses The Wife of Bath as a representation of what it was like for Women in the Middle Ages to be striped of equality and bow to the otherwise male dominated society. For the representation of women Chaucer uses the Tales of “The Scholar”, “The Second Nun “The Reeve’s”, and “The Franklin” and many others in a very dry, pretentious manner to steer readers into the view of how a women of the Middle Ages should be as a so called “virtuous” wife or woman. The concept of marriage plays a major part in manifesting the idea of the issues of inferiority of women. The perception rendered as women having to be obedient and inferior figure to their husbands or male counter parts. Chaucer

The story “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” within the novel “Canterbury Tales” tells the story of a woman who has had a total of five lovers and tells the audience about intimate male and female relationships. This story expresses the satire of a pure woman by asking, "How do virgins beget virgins?" Today, we still hear about similar gender issues. This then allows the reader to relate to the messages between the lines. The plot was also set around the eternal question of what it is that women desire most in life.

The wife of bath makes it a priority to address the patriarchal binary within marriages that relegates women as inferior submissive wives to their superior dominant husbands. She spends a great portion of her prologue talking about her marriages and her relationships with her husbands. As opposed to being the pious woman, mother and home maker she was expected to be, the Wife of Bath manipulated the institution of marriage, exploiting it to accumulate wealth and power. She understands that as a woman she is a commodity and that the only true power she held was her sexuality. She uses this to her advantage in a way that benefits her most. One manner in which she wields this power is by withholding sex in order to gain dominance over her husband.

The Wife of Bath uses bible verses in “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue.” Further, she employs the verses as an outline of her life to find reason in God to justify her actions. Nevertheless, the purpose of the verses differs within each stanza of the poem. The Wife of Bath is a sexually promiscuous, lustful, and manipulative woman. She marries men one after the other as they get older and die. In order to combat and overthrow the speculation and criticism being thrust upon her by societal norms because of her marriages, the wife turns to specific bible passages to find reason in life and support for her actions (Article Myriad.com). When the wife is having sex quite frequently and with different men she is said to be fruitful and multiplying. According to the wife, this is what she is told to do in the bible passage, which she has misinterpreted. Ironically, The Wife of Bath is using a predominantly male dominated book to back up and support her reasons for women being equal to men (Article Myriad.com). Not only has she referred to the benefits of adultery through the bible, she has also attempted to undermine the power of men in the very same way she has attempted to prove that the genders are equal. From this, it can be interpreted that although the wife claims to be providing evidence for women being equal to men, she is actually saying that women are better than men. She misinterprets the readings of the bible and male written passages on purpose in order to suit her needs.

The narrator insists: "He was a verray, parfit, gentil knight," but some modern readers, ill at ease with idealized warriors, and doubtful about the value of the narrator's enthusiasms, have questioned this evaluation. His son, the Squire, is by contrast an elegant young man about court, with fashionable clothes and romantic skills of singing and dancing. Their Yeoman is a skilled servant in charge of the knight's land, his dress is described in detail, but not his character.

In Geoffrey Chaucer's, The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer narrates the accounts of several pilgrims on their way to visit the shrine of St. Thomas Becket at the Cathedral in Canterbury. Through his narratives, Chaucer presents his audience with a broad representation of life and social class interaction in both the pilgrims and the characters in their tales. Chaucer brings to light various ideas, thoughts, and commentary in regards to medieval society. The two most significant characters who provide the greatest insight into contemporary medieval society are the Wife of Bath and the Prioress. Through both the Wife of Bath's Tale and the Prioress's Tale, Chaucer articulates his opinionated views of the etiquette and conduct of women in the

The moral of Wife of Bath is that happiness in a relationship is when a woman is able to have control over her husband against a backdrop of the submissive wives of the Middle Ages. The prologue portrays a jovial woman who introduces herself and her beliefs on marriage. She has never been fond of authority and attributes her expertise in relationships to marriages with five different men. The Wife of Bath’s tale depicts a knight who needs to learn women’s greatest desire within a year in order to avoid beheading. The knight learns that “women desire to have the sovereignty and sit in rule and government above their husbands, and to have their way in love” (Lines 156-8). In the end, the sovereignty the knight gives to his old wife transforms her into a young woman and, “they lived in full joy to the end” (Line 325). The tale is not only a reflection of one’s interest to dominate a relationship, but also a need