The Wife Of Bath's Tale By Geoffrey Chaucer

In The Wife Of Bath’s Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer, the reader is exposed to the roles of women in medieval England. During these times, there were instances where some women were supposed to be submissive to men and others were that women actually had some forms of power. An analysis of the women's roles in the middle ages reveals one thing: women in the middle ages wanted equality, and they still want it, even in the modern times. In The Wife Of Bath’s Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer, women’s roles, are redefined in many ways. One way they are redefined would be that the woman wanted power equal to that of a man, for example when it says, “A woman wants the self-same sovereignty over her husband as over her lover, and master him; he must not be above her”(Chaucer l.77-82). This is stating that women DO want equality, and they do NOT like to be treated like property or like an object. An example of women being treated like property/an object would be also in The Wife

And of that maiden, spite of all she said, by very force he took her maidenhead”(Chaucer l.61-64). This quote also shows that women, virtually had no right, and that this happened almost on a regular basis, which tells us that women were used, then tossed to the side, or often told what to do like not speak up about anything. In Gendering The Black Death: Women In Later Medieval England by Rigby, it states that “The problem for