The Wife of Bath's tale

In the Prologue of the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer's description of the Wife of Bath causes her to stand out more from the other characters.

Chaucer describes the Wife of Bath as a good weaver and a devoted Christian who participates in pilgrimages often. However, she is not a religious woman; the Wife of Bath only travels in pilgrimages because she believes that every place must be seen.

According to Chaucer, the Wife of Bath had been married five times. She is also describes as knowing the 'remedies of love' due to her experiences with marriage and men.

Also in the Prologue, Chaucer describes some of the Wife of Bath's physical characteristics such as her legs, hips, clothes, feet, and her gap-tooth, which symbolized lust and sensuality at that time.

The knight presents his answer to the queen and she decides to let him go with no punishment.

Then, the old woman tells the knight that she wants him to marry her. Embarrassed to have such an ugly wife but still remaining true to his promise, the knight marries the woman in secret.

That night, the knight admits to his new wife that he is disgusted by her. Prompted by this, the old hag lectures the knight on the importance of gentility and then offers him a choice: would he rather have an old but faithful wife or a young beautiful wife who might not be loyal?

Realizing that her new husband has turned the authority over to her, the old woman tells him that she will be both beautiful and faithful. The knight and his beautiful wife live happily for many years.

During the time that Chaucer wrote his Canterbury Tales, the social structure of the world was undergoing a rapid change. Members of the middle class were granted new social mobility.

The end.

Women and Equality

She draws attention to the double standards for men and women. She brings up the fact that men can have many wives but women are looked down upon for having more than one husband.

The wife is also angered by the fact that men and women have the same moral standard when they have had more than one spouse. For men, this is morally acceptable ut for women, it is not even though they are morally compatible.

Chaucer himself was a great example of the more lenient

class structure in

the society; he actually married a knight's daughter, someone who was clearly of higher social status

than him.

The Wife of Bath

The Wife of Bath is described as headstrong and bold. She shows off her Sunday

clothes with pride.

She is not shy or

timid.

And so it happened that this King Arthur had in his court a lusty young knight, who one day came riding from the river; and it happened that he saw walking ahead of him a maiden, whom he ravished, in spite of all her resistance. For this violation there was such clamor and such appeal to King Arthur, that the knight was condemned by course of law to die; and perhaps the statute in place then was so severe that he would have lost his head, if the queen and other ladies had not so long begged the king for mercy, until he granted him his life at that point, and placed him entirely at the queen’s will, to choose whether she would save him or let him die.

This is a joke...she knows that no two women will say the same thing...

“in such a plight that you have even now no assurance of your life. I grant you life, if you can tell

me what thing it is that women desire most. Beware, and guard your neck-bone from iron! And if you cannot tell it right now, I will still give you leave to go for twelve months and a day,

As the knight tries to find a solution for the question, he gets many different answers from many different women. After one year, the knight grudingly begins the journey back to the court without an answer.

On his way back, the knight comes across a circle of dancing women, but as he approaches them, they disappear leaving a single old women.

The old woman offers to give the knight the answer to his question, but in exchange, he must do whatever she asks of him. He agrees and she tells him that what women really want is superiority over men.

The Tale

The Wife of Bath's Tale

Moral

Her message is that, ugly or fair, women should be obeyed in all things by their husbands.