Wife Of Bath Quotes

In The Canterbury Tales, a set of short stories by Geoffrey Chaucer, 29 pilgrims tell stories about their life in order to keep each other entertained on their pilgrimage to Canterbury. One of the pilgrims, Alice, also known as Wife of Bath, particularly stands out. She tells her story of her five husbands, and explains to the readers her ideas of women. These ideas include that women are morally weaker than men, something that she “fixes” by gaining power in unusual ways, such as lying to them or withholding sex. She also gains control over them by always telling them they are in the wrong, something that she considers power because they then believe her and consider her better than them. The Wife of Bath accumulates these tactics from her

She accomplishes this in many ways, such as not being true to her feelings. The Wife twists these lies by feeding her husbands false feelings that she has towards them. She claims that she “had such great fondness for [one of her husbands]. [She] swore that all [her] walking about at night was to spot wenches whom he slept with” (Chaucer 396-399). Alice essentially lies to her husbands, or lovers, in order to have the upper hand in the relationship. This in turn gave her power in the relationship, since he was more invested in the relationship then she was. She would also lie to her husbands about her loyalty towards them. The Wife of Bath might say that her lovers became drunk and said awful things towards her, even if they did not. This gives her what she considers to be power because of the fact that she had them believing all the lies that she spun and had them graveling at her feet for her forgiveness. She “would firmly swear to [her] old husbands, that they said this in their drunkenness; and all was false” (Chaucer 380-382). Often times, Alice was the one to actually get them drunk so that they might forget what had happened. This way, they would be more vulnerable and more pleading for Alice’s forgiveness, in turn giving her the upper hand in the relationship. Lying to her husbands and lovers is one way that the Wife of Bath gains control in her

She chides them for most things, and even complains when it is unessciary to get them to do whatever she wants them to do. This is considered power to the Wife because when she complains and falsely accuses them of crimes, it makes it so her lovers will do whatever she wants in order to get back in her good graces. For this reason, “[she] would be chiding them all the time; even if the pope had sat beside them, by [her] word, [she would not spare them at their own table” (Chaucer 415-418). She will go to whatever extent she needs to in order for her husbands and lovers to fall at her feet, and eventually falling into her trap of deceit. Alice always takes the opportunity to shine a bad light on her lovers, so she might direct a good one on herself. Even though her lovers were all human, meaning they often did mess up, she would accuse them of false crimes even if they did nothing wrong. The Wife would also complain for no reason, but would still have her lovers under her grasp of fixing whatever she claimed was wrong. “The pain and woe [she] did them, though they were innocent, by God’s sweet suffering! For [the Wife] could bite and whinny like a horse. [She] knew how to complain, even if [she] was guilty; or else [she] would have often been undone” (Chaucer 384-388). The Wife has gained many years of experience through her multitude of husbands, which she uses in order to