A Woman as A Misogynist
The Wife of Bath in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales is an interesting character, much more forward about her sexuality than most others you may read about. In the setting of the story, in that time period, women were generally viewed as prim and proper, even prudish. Alexandra Losonti, in her article “Discourse and Dominion in Chaucer’s Wife of Bath Prologue,” argues “In the Middle Ages women were identified by their roles in life and society as wives, widows, mothers or maidens and were portrayed in relation to a man or group of men” (5). The Wife of Bath is defined as just that, a wife of a man. However, she defies every other standard quality of a woman with her exploited sexuality and in-charge attitude. She tells tales of how she controls her husbands, defying misogynist views in the tale but her boisterous presentation of her ideas showcases Chaucer’s true opinion of women. Though the Wife of Bath is dead set to disprove every misogynist idea of the time, she exemplifies others, all as part of Chaucer’s underlying point to prove women the lesser sex.
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Women were expected to be virgins at the time of marriage, per society, and the Wife of Bath openly disagrees. She was not a virgin and was married five times. She justifies this by saying, “If virginity were for everyone, why do we all have sexual organs?" in line 114. Though Jesus rebuked the woman at the well for having had five husbands, the Wife of Bath insists that the command to go forth and multiply is more important for her to follow. She twists this biblical principle to support her anti-misogynists views but in doing so appears illogical and