The Wife of Bath in Chaucer's The Canterbury
Tales has strong feminist viewpoints. In making her arguments
for marriage, she uses biblical allusions to support her views. It
is clear that the men use a "version" of these allusions to place women in a subservient
position, being controlled by her husband in all things—something the Wife of Bath
admittedly cannot abide.
There are several biblical
allusions in "The Wife of Bath's Prologue." To begin with, there are references to
"evil" women, according to in Janekyn's "Book of Wikked Wives.'' Included are Eve, the
"mother of sin;" Delilah, who tricks Sampson to his doom; and, the href="http://www.womeninthebible.net/2.8.Samaritan_woman.htm">Samaritan
woman who speaks to Jesus. (She is a Samaritan, enemy of the Jews.) Whereas
one can understand the difficulty men might have with Eve and Delilah, the only concern
they would appear to experience regarding the Samaritan woman is that she speaks to a
man, particularly Jesus, on the same level. She is not
subservient.
Biblical allusions used by men, as the Wife
sees it, are touted as necessary "to keep the marriage happy," as a woman is instructed
to know her place and href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/acquiesce">acquiesce to the
wishes of her husband. However, the Wife believes that the men take many biblical
allusions out of context to master their wives. When I Corinthians 11:7 notes that
"woman is the glory of man," it does not mean that a woman is to serve the needs of the
man. The entire verse reads:
A man should not wear anything on his head when
worshiping, for man is made in God's image and reflects God's glory. And woman reflects
man's glory.
In essence, man
reflects God's glory, and woman reflects man's glory. There is no intent of mastery
conveyed in the original text, though medieval man has made it so. The Wife makes note
of this discrepancy. Remember, she is very much a woman of God; she simply questions the
social contradiction of the intent of the scriptures as translated
by a male-dominated society.
The Wife of Bath repeatedly makes clear that God
intended well toward
women...
The Wife then refers
to Lamech, the first recorded bigamist in the Bible, as well as Abraham and Jacob. She
disagrees with society's double-standard regarding adultery. Though both man and woman
are involved in the same act, the woman is severely punished or even killed, while the
man is excused.
The Wife enjoys being married, seemingly
looking for husband number six. She believes a woman should respect her husband, but
does not understand why the same may not be expected by wives of their husbands. She
references Ephesians 5:28...
[So] ought men to love their wives as their own
bodies.
This, too, is
biblical, but it is overlooked by those men of the Wife's society that choose to treat
their wives as possessions and servants. The Wife can see the validity of biblical
scripture when embraced in its original context with its original
intent.
"The Wife of Bath's Tale" further exhorts men to
treat their women better. A knight rapes a woman, and so his punishment comes at the
discretion of women: the Queen and her ladies. To save his life, he must give his trust
into the hands of an old hag, who saves him; but he must marry her. While he at first
tries to control her, saying she is too ugly, old and socially unacceptable for him to
sleep with, she reasons with him. Once he gives in to her wishes, he is rewarded with a
wife any man would want.
It is mutual kindness and respect
that the Wife of Bath offers up in her prologue and her tale.
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