The Wife of Bath: How Being Married Five Times Gives Wisdom

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The Wife of Bath’s Tale is among the best known of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. It provides insight of women roles in the later Middle ages, and the Wife of Bath opinion on marriage. Though some question and disapprove of her multiple marriages, the Wife of Bath speaks about marriage and how being married five times gave her wisdom and gifts. She openly speaks about the subject of marriage and sex. By this creating insight for readers on the most important issue in marriages: behavior in marriage, female dominance, and equality.

Many have question her numerous amount of marriages saying that “Christ went only once to a wedding, in Cana of Galilee, by that same example he taught me that I should be wedded only once”(22). But the Wife of Bath wants to know how many could she have in marriage? Never have she heard a certain number to marry, and how men interrupt the bible falsely. Nor does the Wife of Bath find it important to remain a virgin. She says "He spoke this to those people who wished to be perfect; and by your leave, gentle people, I am not one of those. I will use the flower of my life in the acts and fruits of marriage” (114). She uses her sexual powers as an “instrument” to control her husbands, thus, she refuses to submit to the stereotypical ways, and she creates a new platform for a woman that makes women roles significant in the Middle Ages.

Next, the Wife of Bath speaks about her five husbands. Of that five, three were good to her and the other two were bad. She openly admits how she treated the three husbands who were rich and old with dominance. She says” I would accuse my old husband of visiting prostitutes, even when they were so sick that they could scarcely stand” with that she would leave her husban...

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...nd good. The Prologue relies on evidence from experience, and the Wife of Bath gives readers insight of the true intentions of wives.

Ultimately the wife of bath tries to convey to readers that the most important values for wives are: behavior in marriage, female dominance, and equality. Wives want authority over themselves and free will. When women have the ability to think for themselves, women are at their peek of feeling free. Freedom is the key importance for sovereignty in the Wife of Bath’s Tale. That women might renew youth in old age seems impossible, but giving women sovereignty plainly can be achieved - the ideal can in part be realized. If this does not happen, husbands who are angry of dispense are to blame.

Works Cited

Greenblatt, Stephen, gen. ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 9th ed. Vol.

A. New York: Norton, 2013. Print.

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