Chaucer's Treatment Of Women In The Canterbury Tales

Geoffrey Chaucer’s, “The Canterbury Tales” tells a story about the journey of pilgrims who come from different social classes, all heading to Canterbury, England. During their quest, Chaucer explores moral lessons through the tales that the pilgrims spoke upon and he explains how one should live through the errors of both men and women. Through these tales however, there is a subliminal message which is how medieval men at this time looked down upon women and how this affected their role in society. Women’s roles in the Medieval era were not equal to that of men. During this period of time, women were forced to be obedient to man and were only to be seen and not heard. If a women had went against male authority, she was seen as evil, who was

Throughout the story, Chaucer discusses his point of view on women and their behaviors during that era. One woman in particular that Chaucer puts much attention to is the Wife of Bath. In the Wife of Bath’s Tale, Chaucer describes her as this very lustful and lavish woman, who didn’t care about man's authority. Chaucer states in her tale that, “She’d had five husbands, all at the church door.” This tells the audience that she paid no attention to authority or what people thought, because at this point in time, divorce was not handled the same as it is now and it had a whole different meaning. People looked harshly upon women who went from man to man. Not only were women required to listen to male authority, but they were very limited to what they could do. Women were not able to travel, live, or have a mind of their own. Chaucer goes on to add in the Wife of Bath’s tale that she, “Had thrice been to Jerusalem/… to Rome and also to Boulogne/ St. James of Compostella and Cologne (473-476).” This just adds on to the idea that she cared very little to medieval man’s power and that she stood up to what she felt was right, which women during Medieval society did not