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The Tale Proper (the Wife of Bath)
In The Wife of Bath’s tale, Chaucer sculptured a desirable woman who has
been married five times and has many other affairs in her youth, making her
well practiced in the art of love. She presents herself as someone who loves
marriage and sex, but, from what we see of her, she also takes pleasure in
rich attire, talking, and arguing. She is deaf in one ear and has a gap
between her front teeth, which is considered attractive in Chaucer’s time.
She has traveled on pilgrimages to Jerusalem three times and elsewhere in
Europe as well.
The Wife of Bath gives a lengthy account of her
feelings about marriage. Quoting from the Bible, the Wife argues against
those who believe it is wrong to marry more than once, and she explains how
she dominates and controls each of her five husbands. She married her fifth
husband, Jankyn, for love instead of money. After the Wife has rambles on
for a while, the Friar butts in to complain that she is taking too long, and
the Summoner retorts that friars are like flies, always meddling. The Friar
promises to tell a tale about a summoner, and the Summoner promises to tell
a tale about a friar. The Host cries for everyone to quiet down and allow
the Wife to commence her tale.
In her tale, a young knight of King Arthur’s court rapes a
maiden. To atone for his crime, Arthur’s queen sends him on a quest to
discover what women want most. An ugly old woman promises the knight that
she will tell him the secret if he promises to do whatever she wants for
saving his life. He agrees, and she tells him women want control of their
husbands and their own lives. They go together to Arthur’s queen, and the
old woman’s answer turns out to be correct. The old woman then tells the
knight that he must marry her. When the knight confesses later that he is
repulsed by her appearance, she gives him a choice: she can either be ugly
and faithful, or beautiful and unfaithful. The knight tells her to make the
choice herself, and she rewards him for giving her control of the marriage
by rendering herself both beautiful and faithful.
One of two female storytellers (the other is the Prioress),
the Wife has a lot of experience under her belt. She has traveled all over
the world on pilgrimages, so Canterbury is a jaunt compared to other
perilous journeys she has endured. Not only has she seen many lands, she has
lived with five husbands. She is worldly in both senses of the word: she has
seen the world and has experience in the ways of the world, that is, in love
and sex. Chaucer depicted this experienced lady skillfully as follows:
A worthy woman from beside Bath city
Was with us, somewhat deaf, which was a pity.
In making cloth she showed so great a bent
She bettered those of Ypres and the Ghent.
In all the parish not a dame dared stir
Towards the altar steps in the front of her,
And if indeed they did, so wrath was she
As to be quite put out of charity.
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,
And garterd tight; her shoes were soft and new.
Bold as her face, handsome, and red in hue.
A worthy woman all her life, what’s more
She’d had five husbands, all at the church door,
Apart from other company in youth;
No need just now to speak of that, forsooth.
And she had thrice been to Jerusalem…
Rich and tasteful, the Wife’s clothes veer a bit toward
extravagance: her face is wreathed in heavy cloth, her stockings are a fine
scarlet color, and the leather on her shoes is soft, fresh, and brand
new—all of which demonstrate how wealthy she has become. Scarlet was a
particularly costly dye, since it was made from individual red beetles found
only in some parts of the world. In describing the clothing of the woman,
Chaucer stated:
…
Easily on an ambling horse she sat
Well wimpled up, and on her head a hat
As broad as is buckler or a shield;
She had a flowing mantle that concealed
Large hips, her heels spurred sharply under that.
The fact that she comes from Bath, a major English
cloth-making town in the Middle Ages, is reflected in both her talent as a
seamstress and her stylish garments. Bath at this time was fighting for a
place among the great European exporters of cloth, which were mostly in the
Netherlands and Belgium. So the fact that the Wife’s sewing surpasses that
of the cloth makers of “Ipres and of Gaunt” (Ypres and Ghent) speaks well of
Bath’s (and England’s) attempt to outdo its overseas competitors.
Although she is argumentative and enjoys talking, the
Wife is intelligent in a commonsense, rather than intellectual way. Through
her experiences with her husbands, she has learned how to provide for
herself in a world where women had little independence or power. The chief
manner in which she has gained control over her husbands has been in her
control over their use of her body. The Wife uses her body as a bargaining
tool, withholding sexual pleasure until her husbands give her what she
demands.
In this tale, Chaucer gives a vivid sketch of a woman
of the middle class, and a colorful picture of the domestic life of that
class in his age.
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