"The Wife Of Bath"

What is the meaning of marriage? Does it mean loyalty, honesty and love, or does it mean money, sovereignty and the pleasure of sex? Alisoun, the Wife of Bath, as described in Geoffrey Chaucer's "General Prologue" of the Canterbury Tales and in the "Wife of Bath's Prologue," defines marriage both ways. As a woman living in the fourteenth century, she has a very modern view of marriage even women in the twentieth century do not have. Alisoun has been married five times and is now looking for a sixth husband. She is proud of her marriage experience and believes the more she marries the better she is.

In the "General Prologue," Chaucer describes Alisoun as a cloth maker who surpasses the weavers of the Low Countries. She shows off her skills by wearing layers of cloth she has made herself. She has big hips and a gap-tooth (which she says symbolizes sensuality and lust). The Wife of Bath is certainly a woman who likes to catch attention by wearing the color red. She is described this way in the "General Prologue": "Hir hosen (leggings) weren of fin scarlet reed (red), Ful straite yteyd (tightly laced), and shoes ful moiste (supple) and newe. Bold was hir face and fair and reed of hewe." (Norton 92). Later, she talks about her red dresses.

Money is an important issue in her marriages. Out of the five husbands that Alisoun has had, she considers three of them good because they are old and rich: "Tho housbonds that I hadde, As three of hem were goode, and two were badde. The three men were goode, and riche, and olde" (Norton 121). The three husbands are good because they die eventually, and she takes care of herself with the money they leave for her. Her fourth and fifth husbands are bad because they are young and wild. Her fourth husband has a mistress, and she revenges herself on him by pretending to fall in love with someone else.

Alisoun has sovereignty over her husbands. Since she is so experienced with men, she knows what men need most. In her "Prologue," she points out how she controls four of her husbands: "I governed hem so wel after (according to) my lawe" (Norton 122). However, she doesn't have this power over her fifth husband, Janekin, who shows interest in a book about "Wicked Wives" more than in her. When Janekin is reading his book about wicked wives, Alisoun gets upset: "Al sodeinly three leves have I plight (snatched) Out of his book right as he redde, and eke I with my fist so took (hit) him on the cheeke That in oure fir he fil (fell) bakward adown." (Norton 134). After she tears the pages out of his book, Janekin hits her on the head, which is why she is deaf in one ear. Afterward, he is sorry and burns his book. He also gives her the house and lands that also gives her sovereignty over him.

The Wife of Bath, as she says in her "Prologue," focuses her marriages on the pleasures she gets through sex. She is proud of her sexual experience. She says, "Of whiche I have piked out the beste, Bothe of hir nether (lower) purs and of hir cheste (money box)" (Norton 118). This means that she married men for their sex organs and their money. She describes her husband this way: "An housbonde wol I have, I wol nat lette, which shal be bothe my dettour (debtor) and my thral (slave), and have his tribulacion withal upon his flessh whil that I am his wif" (Norton 120). In other words, her husband is her debtor and slave. The way he pays for his debt is by making love to her.

As a woman at the end of the twentieth century, I still cannot accept the behavior of the Wife of Bath as discussed in her "Prologue". Her views on marriage and the ways that she treats her husbands are certainly not how a woman should act in that period of time or now. I feel that there should be tolerance and equality in a marriage because that is the only way that marriage can last forever. Unlike her "Prologue," the Wife of Bath's "Tale" is about a knight and a hag. The hag is married to the knight and when she asks him to choose her of being old, ugly and faithful or young, beautiful, and unfaithful. He tells her to choose, which gives her the sovereignty. The hag then turns into a beautiful woman, and they live happily ever after. From her "Tale," we can see that there is happiness in a marriage if both parts are considerate of each other. However, the Wife of Bath does not act this way toward her husbands.