The Wife of Bath's Views on Love, Marriage, and Female Supre

The Wife of Bath, as introduced in the General Prologue, is a professed authority on love and a firm believer in the rule of man by woman, and in her own precedence generally. Chaucer describes her as being somewhat deaf; she was also an excellent seamstress and weaver, and she had been on several other pilgrimages. She wore fine clothing, including scarlet red stockings and a large hat; Chaucer points these out to show her availability and her prosperity. The Wife had been married five times already, and Chaucer noted her assertiveness and sensuality as evidenced by the gaps in her teeth.

The Wife of Bath clearly has her own perception of marriage, which Chaucer hints at in his Prologue and fully reveals in the Wife’s Prologue and Tale. In both the Prologue and Tale of the Wife, we see the institution of marriage used to control financial and sexual powers. The Wife of Bath displays a complete sense of mockery toward marriage as a holy institution; she also views marriage as a woman’s chance to dominate a man.

In her Prologue, the Wife of Bath announces that she believes experience is more important than authority, and she defends her actions of

The Prologue is more than the Wife’s autobiography about her life, her husbands, and why she married them; she would have been viewed as a horrible woman by the medieval Church, deceitful in her actions and reasons for marriage. However, to prove that she does not care what the Church says and that she is proud of her many marriages, she states; “Blessed be God that I have wedded five…welcome the sixte whan that evere he shal!” (lines 44 and 51). This is also another way in which she tells the men that she is available and she is marriage material.

The realism of the Wife of Bath’s life with five different husbands and the cruelty of some and the kindness of the others are mirrored in the witty tale she tells. She begins by showing how, even under the rule of King Arthur and his chivalrous knights, women are at the mercy of men; this is demonstrated in the rape of the young maiden by the knight. Immediately, though, the Wife begins to weave in her own philosophy by showing that Arthur’s queen can convince him to leave the knight’s life in her hands. Further, the task given the knight by the queen (to find out “what thing it is that women most desire”) is noteworthy because in medieval times, very little attention was paid to what women wanted, even if they were royalty or wealthy. This places the focus of the story on women’s needs rather than men’s.

However, this disproves the idea that the Wife of Bath is merely a lascivious middle-aged woman who cannot hold her tongue, as Chaucer seems to portray her in his General Prologue. The purpose of her façade may be to disguise the point of equality in marriage or to show that the Wife believes that the only way to achieve happiness is to give wo

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