Chaucer does it through the Wife of Bath as a medium to reach the hopelessly ignorant women of the time should they hear of the tale. .
The Wife of Bath possesses such wonderful characteristics that are looked on as devilish by the traditional men but valiant and enduring by women and humanitarians. The complexity and uniqueness of Dame Alice, which is her real name, is symbolized by having a prologue practically twice as long as her tale. Chaucer creates a tremendous example of all the things women desired at the time that men would not allow them with Dame Alice. She strikes fear into the town and its parish to the point where she gets and does whatever she wants. A perfect example of the fear and respect the town has for her is on lines 459-463 in the General Prologue: "In all the parish not a dame dared stir, Towards the altar steps in front of her, And if indeed they did, so wrath was she as to be quite put out of charity." Her extravagance and boldness are exhibited in numerous cases, including lines 457-458: "In making cloth she showed so great a bent she bettered those of Ypres and of Ghent." As well as on lines 463-467: "Her kerchiefs were of finely woven ground; I dared have sworn they weighed a good ten pound, The ones she wore on Sunday, on her head. Her hose were of the finest scarlet red and gartered tight; her shoes were soft and new." Also on lines 480-483: "Well wimpled up, and on her head a hat as broad as is a buckler or a shield; She had a flowing mantle that concealed large hips, her heels spurred sharply under that." .
The Wife of Bath is a woman who freely admits to all the lust, the conniving and the deceit that defines her. She also prides herself in the fact that she has been able to control and manipulate her numerous husbands. The Wife of Bath has married five times, all rich men, and then when her husbands died she inherited their wealth and fortune.