The Wife of Bath's Tale, by Geoffrey Chaucer

The Wife of Bath has to be Chaucer’s most remarkable character. She shares with Chaucer himself the distinction of being a pilgrim who represents no trade, profession or calling, but is there just as herself. She is not even representative of womanhood in general, because she is clearly a very unusual woman, in her own or any other era. Chaucer clearly sympathises with her general attitude to life, in that he gives her plenty of scope to express herself, but she also proves to be far from pleasant as an individual. It must be open to question whether Chaucer had a real person in mind when creating the Wife of Bath, as she seems to be too complex a personality to be the product of imagination alone.

The prologue

The prologue to her tale, at 856 lines, is only two lines shorter than the whole of the General Prologue, and is, on its own, one of Chaucer’s most successful pieces of writing. It is a confession, an “apologia” and a programme for matrimonial reform, all rolled into one. The Wife creates herself as she talks: strong-willed, opinionated, highly sexed, frank, humorous and masterful.

We know from the General Prologue that this is a woman who has “been around a bit” in more senses than one. We can guess her age as being in the mid to late forties, given her “hipes large” for example, and the amount she has packed into her life to date. She is clearly quite wealthy, from the description of her clothing, although we are also told that she is an excellent weaver of cloth, so we can assume that her wealth is not inherited. Only a woman with money could have afforded all the foreign travel she has undertaken, including three trips to Jerusalem.

However, the fact that strikes us most is that she has been married five times, and it is marriage that forms the main theme of the prologue to her tale, and indeed of the tale itself. It also becomes clear that she is a 14^th century precursor of "Bess of Hardwick", the 16^th century landowner who gained her wealth from the fortunes of the several men she married and who then conveniently died.

She defends herself for having had five husbands. There was a general consensus in medieval society that a widow or widower should not remarry, based on the universal belief in physical resurrection at the Day of Judgment, which would render anyone a bigamist for eternity if they had had more than one husband or wife when alive. However, our much-married lady reckons that God’s instruction to “go forth and multiply” takes precedence over any other considerations.

She has no problem with people who choose to be virgins, she says, but such a state was clearly never to her liking. Marriage, for her, is primarily a matter of sex, as she tells us that her choice of husband has much to do with how their “nether purs” shapes up. Why else should men and women have been given genitals of different types if not for use? Or, to quote her own words, “In wyfhod I wol use myn instrument as freely as my Makere hath it sent”. However, in her view a husband also has a duty to serve his wife sexually. She goes even further by saying that, in marriage, the woman should have power over the body of the man.

This latter view is too much for the Pardoner, who says that he was intending to get married soon but is now having second thoughts. The Wife of Bath tells him to wait until she tells her tale, and then see if she is not right in what she says. This is good enough for the Pardoner, and the Wife proceeds to outline her personal experience of marriage.

She relates how three of the husbands were good and two were bad. The three good husbands, who were “riche and olde” did their bedroom duties to her satisfaction, and also endowed her with plenty of their worldly goods. She comes across as a very calculating woman, in that she earns their love by granting sexual favours, and this love results in riches and land coming her way. She also makes it clear that she was always the boss in the household, using whatever means were appropriate at the time.

It is interesting at this point to note that the Wife addresses herself to womankind in general, advising them how to get “maisterie” over their husbands. However, her immediate audience consists almost entirely of men, the only other women on the pilgrimage being a prioress and a nun! As this prologue only has meaning within its context in the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer must have had his wider audience in mind when writing these words.

She recites a long haranguing speech given to one of her husbands, addressed variously as “olde kaynard”, “olde dotard” and “olde foole”, as an example of how a wife can gain the upper hand. This includes a demand for equal access to the treasure chest, equal rights when it comes to roving eyes, and personal freedom, because “We love no man that taketh kep or charge wher that we goon”. This is clearly intended for the Wife’s male audience!

She also makes it clear that she wants more than equality from marriage. She demands faithfulness from her men but has no intention of being faithful herself. She is open about the deceits she has practiced, and about the constant nagging to which the husbands have been subjected. She refers to the ancient tradition (still carried on today) in the Essex village of Dunmow where a side of bacon is awarded to a couple who can prove that they have lived without a cross word for a year and a day. However, the Wife is not too bothered about missing her chance, saying, “yet in bacon hadde I nevere delit”.

Next, she tells us about her fourth husband. However, it is possible that Chaucer has slipped up here, because she twice tells us that she is going to mention the fourth husband; on the first occasion she is “yong and ful of ragerye (passion)” and she then laments the passing of the years and of her beauty before the second introduction to the fourth husband and a description of how she harried him to his grave after she had found him to be unfaithful. Perhaps the first “fourth” should have read “second” or “third”.

The fifth husband was a wife-beater, but the one she loved best of all. This is an interesting piece of psychology, because the Wife clearly respected the one husband who actually stood up to her and was sparing with his own sexual favours. The thing that is bought at a price has most value, as she says, even when that price includes violence. The paradox of why women stay loyal to men who abuse them is nothing new, as the Wife clearly attests.

She goes on at some length about how she met and fell in love with the fifth husband, who was half her age, the courtship taking place when the fourth husband was still alive. It would appear that this was the only marriage of the five that was a true love match, as the husband had no fortune of his own.

However, this has clearly been a turbulent marriage, and she tells the story of how she lost her hearing in one ear. This came about because he read a book that recounted many cases of women who had harmed their men, and warned her not to imitate them. This led to her tearing three leaves out of the book, and in the ensuing fight he hit her so hard on the ear that she has been deaf in it ever since. In his repentance, he agreed to burn the book and let her have the “sovereynetee” from then on.

The tale

After a short interlude that presages the row between the Friar and the Summoner that will lead to their mutually insulting tales, the Wife tells her own tale. This continues the theme of her prologue, namely that wedded bliss is only possible if the wife is in charge.

The tale is a version of the familiar folk tale of the “loathly lady” that has been told in various forms down the centuries, one of the most recent being the animated “Shrek” films, but here it is used for a particular purpose within the Wife’s argument.

In the days of King Arthur, a knight commits a rape and is sentenced to death by the King. However, the ladies of the court take pity on him and persuade the King to let the Queen make the decision as to his fate. She asks the knight the question, “What thyng is it that wommen moost desiren?” He has a year and a day to find the answer, on pain of death.

He finds this quest to be a difficult one, because there is no consensus among the women to whom he poses the question. The Wife gives a long list of possible answers. However, one thing that all women have in common, according to her, is that they cannot keep a secret, and she tells the story of Midas from Ovid’s “Metamorphoses” to illustrate her point. His wife feels that she must tell someone about his ass’s ears, and eventually she tells the secret to the water in a lake. However, this has no bearing on the rest of the tale, so perhaps this little bit of male prejudice was just Chaucer being mischievous.

Despairing of ever finding the answer, the knight is making his way back to meet his fate when he comes across a group of women dancing. As he approaches them, hoping that they might help his quest, they vanish, and the only person he can see is an old woman. He asks her the question, and she promises to give the answer that will save his life, as long as he will do whatever she then demands of him. She whispers the answer in his ear and he goes off to face the court, with the Queen sitting in judgment.

The answer he gives is that what women want most is “to have sovereyntee” in marriage, and this is agreed by all the women present as being the right answer. However, the old woman now announces that the knight must fulfil his part of the bargain, which is that he must marry her, despite his protestations.

The wedding takes place the next day, but the knight is then extremely reluctant to perform his wedding night duties. He complains that she is loathsome, old, and low-born. She then preaches him a sermon on what constitutes true gentility and nobility, quoting Jesus, Dante and various classical writers. The gist of her argument is that riches do not make a person noble and that an outwardly noble person who performs villainous deeds will always be a “cherl”.

She offers him a choice. He can have her “foul and old”, and therefore be safe from being cuckolded, or “yong and fair”, with all the ensuing dangers of her being attractive to other men. He eventually appreciates the wisdom of submitting to her authority and leaves the choice to her. Having won the “maisterie” she then promises him the best of both worlds, to be both young and fair and true to him, which is of course the expected fairy-tale ending.

The Wife concludes by praying that Jesus “shorte hir lyves, that wol nat be governed by hir wyves”.

Discussion

One might argue that the Wife of Bath fails to prove her point with this story, because the knight is hardly a free agent, either in making his choice or in taking the old woman as his wife. By committing rape in the first place, he has not only put his life in jeopardy but he has also forfeited his nobility, as the old woman says. He is therefore forced to give sovereignty to his wife, and his protests are evidence that he would not have done so had the circumstances been otherwise.

So, taking the prologue and the tale together, what can we say about the Wife of Bath? I reckon that she is a very complex character, and certainly by far the most psychologically interesting fictional woman in pre-Shakespearean literature. I find it curious that, despite her very active sex life over many years, she never mentions having had any children. Has she therefore turned her thwarted maternal instincts towards her husbands and converted her feelings into close control over their actions and decisions?

This is a woman who has had a hard life and has found her own ways of dealing with the pressures of survival in 14^th century England. There is a hard edge to her, and a ruthless, calculating side that is far from attractive. We know from the General Prologue that she has a temper, and refuses to take second place to anyone. We now learn that being one of her husbands was not going to make for an easy life, and perhaps the love-hate relationship of the fifth marriage is the best way to achieve a sort of happiness with a woman like this. One can sympathise with her, but she is hardly somebody that most of us could like.

She has been seen as literature’s first feminist but it is by no means conclusive that Chaucer is on her side in this. She makes a strong case for her point of view, but is it perhaps too strong? Is Chaucer’s real message for men that, if they do not watch out, women such as this will take over their lives? The tales that follow continue the debate, and it is left to the reader to decide where his or her sympathies lie.

© John Welford