The Notorious Wife of Bath
Upon a first reading of the Wife of Bath's Prologue, it's hard not to feel the need to pat her on the shoulder and say "Go-girl!" There's no denying the impact that Feminism has had on our Millennium-revved society, and the Wife of Bath's character would certainly have contradicted the oppressive customs of Chaucer's time. But on closer inspection, it would seem that the Prologue could be considered a medium for an anti-feminist message, under the semblance of a seemingly feminist exterior. She confesses her treatment of her husbands and her tendency to "swere and lyen," and this self-incrimination invokes a feeling that the Wife is an extraordinarily attractive character by sharing her feminine faults with us, good-humouredly. At the same time, her robust energy and her arguments against anti-feminists; her comments about clerks being unable to do "Venus werkes" and taking it out on "sely wyf(s)" in print, are carried further in the Tale, where the ending arguably serves as a climax, summarising many of the Wife's themes. In her Prologue, her arguments in favour of marriage show a hearty common sense, but they are suspect - while it is true that marriage peoples the earth and replenish
es existing stocks of "virginitee," her own marriages do not seem to have produced any offspring, and while it may be "bet [...] to be wedded than to brinne," her marriages, despite her claim that "in wyfhood I wol use myn instrument," do not seem to have prevented her from "goon a-caterwaw[ing]" and by decision engaging in fornication ("I ne loved nevere by no discrecioun/But evere folwede myn appetit,/Al were he short, or long, or blak, or whit"), which is after all what marriage was, according to her, supposed to prevent. It is true that the Wife of Bath's opinions about women are suspiciously similar to those of the anti-feminists. She claims that "half so boldely kan ther no other man/ Swere and lyen, as a womman kan," and that for women, "Greet prees at market maketh deere ware,/ And to greet cheep is holde at litel prys"; her own behaviour also follows the exact pattern as predicted by "Theofraste." However, the difference is that she takes pride in her faults (eg. "Deceite, weping, spinning God hathe yive/ To wommen kindely"; and wives who are able to deceive their husbands ("Bere him on honde that the cow is wood") are, by her definition, "wys wives") and that her audacity is subversively attractive, not least because of her cheerful energy ("jolitee") and conspirational tone (e.g. her addressing of them as "Lordinges" and her frankness with regard to her sexuality) - she cleverly presents herself in such a manner that her audience (pilgrims or readers) is manipulated into laughing with her, whether at her outwitting her husbands or at her skill in obtaining "maistrie," and thus less inclined to pass moral judgement; her admitting to these faults is in itself altready quite agreeable, not least in contrast to the hypocrisy of, for example, the Pardoner, who takes a high moral tone while attempting to fleece the pilgrims into buying bogus relics. Also, her appeal to common sense and to "experience" as opposed to "auctoritee" (reinforced by the homely imagery - e.g. that of the "breed of pure whete-seed" and "barely-breed" and her comparison of herself to "an hors" that "koude bite and whinne" - and her projected image as a simple ("sely"), practical, straightforward "wyf"), while perhaps not always justifiable when one looks closer, is nevertheless extremely agreeable; and her claims are not all irrational - as in her question as to the function of the "thinges smale" in the world of the "clerks" who advocate "virginitee" - a question to which "auctoritee" has simply no answer. As such, the Wife of Bath's Prologue is rather a brilliant character study of an individual rather than an obvious anti-feminist theme in disguise. In contrast, the Tale (or the Wife as speaker of the Tale) is arguably lacking in this energy
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Approximate Word count = 1853
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)
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