“Consider Chaucer’s presentation of the Wife’s relationship

Chaucer presents the relationship between the Wife of Bath and her first three husbands as being extremely sexual. She says that she had sexual intercourse with her husbands every night, so they could be grateful for this as she gives them so much pleasure. We know this as she says;

“The firste night had many a mirie fit with ech of hem, so wel was him on live”

this is presented to us the readers as though the Wife is trying to compensate to her husband with sex, for the fact that she does not love them. She believes that if she gives them lots of sex they will carry on loving her. It comes across as though she wants the security of a husband, as she does not feel love towards them and does not want them to leave her, so she gives them sex to make them stay.

Chaucer presents their relationship as being extremely one sided, as the Wife of Bath does not val

Chaucer presents the Wife of Bath as not treating each of her husbands as an individual. This is emphasis on the fact that she does not love them, and is shown by how tells us of them. The fourth and fifth husband are introduced by the Wife by her saying that she is now going to talk of her fifth husband;

however, the first three husbands are not introduced at all, and she does not distinguish between them when she is speaking, they seem to all be merged together. This shows of how she does not value them each as individuals.

“Now I wol tellen of my fourthe housbonde”

“What rowne ye with oure maide? Benedicite! Sire olde lecchour, lat thy japes be.”

“Baar I stiffly mine olde housbondes on honed that thus they seyden in hir dronkenesse; and al was fals…”

Some topics in this essay:
Wife Bath, Benedicite Sire, Abraham Bible, Bath Chaucer, wife bath, control husbands, husband feel, able gain control, husband feel guilty, relationship wife bath, wife bath husbands, authority figures, love instead, able gain, materialistic objects, ech hem, actions authority, gain control,