Old Wive's Tale

             Alison of Bath, throughout the years, has five husbands. Each of which, she explains her reasons for marriage and divorce in "The Prologue to the Wife of Bath's Tale." Her first three husbands were old, rich and extremely jealous. She used many different kinds if sneaky techniques to get these old men to correspond to her every want and need. Her next husband had a mistress. Dame Alison grew angry, and gave him a reason to be jealous by being passionate, but not intimate, with other men. He died of his jealousy. At the funeral for the fourth husband, she fell in love with the legs and feet of her fifth husband, .
             Jenkin, the student, was among the crowd,.
             And when I saw him walk, so help me God,.
             Behind the bier, I thought he had a pair.
             Of legs and feet so cleanly turned and fair.
             I put my heart completely in his hold. (Chaucer 223).
             This, her fifth and final husband in the book, was twenty years younger, and extremely intelligent. He would read from a book of wicked wives every night, just to punish his poor wife, and often would beat her. One night she ripped three pages from the book and slapped Jenkin on the cheek, knocking him over in his chair. He returned the blow, leaving her deaf in one ear, and she fell to the floor, acting as though he had killed her. He apologized for his action immediately, and she smacked him across the cheek again. Muscatine calls her act "militant feminism fetching traditional masculine domination a healthy blow on the cheek (213)." They eventually reconciled their differences, and Alison forced Jenkin to throw the book, the one she hated so much, into the fire. From that day forth, they lived in happiness together, and this is the first example of a working marriage the Old Wife demonstrates to her fellow travelers.
             After a total of five different husbands, and currently looking for the sixth, Alison has degraded her self within medieval society. One of her many clever examples of how women and men are currently treated unfairly within her society is this example of numerous marriages (Blake).