Any topic can be used out of all

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Ayush Suresh

Disa Gamberra

BUS 3920

05/05/20

Marriage, Economics and the Wife of Bath

This paper will discuss how the wife of bath views marriage and how she changes from a

business individual with ethical considerations of her workers to a wife who is respectful to her

husband and shares her possessions equally. The Wife of Bath criticizes the hatred and prejudice

that is directed towards the female population. During the Middle Ages, women's discrimination

and every form of antifeminism were not respected. She defies the thinking of medieval ages by

being a widow that has been remarried over five times which was not allowed during those

times. The Wife of Bath says, "For if God had commanded maidenhood, then with that same

word had he condemned marrying" (1). In the statement, she denies the proposition of Jerome

regarding matrimony and virginity by claiming that refuted reproduction and marriage if He had

slammed virginity.

The Wife of Bath depicts the issue of female dominance and sovereignty. During her

three marriages, she did not behave as was the custom demanded by the traditions during the

medieval ages. The first three husbands of the Wife of Bath are depicted as submissive whose

sexual urges were satisfied by the woman. She would her sexual and a nagging nature to demand

money from these rich husbands. "And thus, I boast of one thing for myself: in the end, I had the

better in every way, by cunning, or by force, or by some type of device, such as continual

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murmuring or grumbling" (5). Though the narration of the Wife of Bath shows that she wanted

domination, but the Wife wanted to be a form of equality in the house. This is the view that the

Wife of Bath was trying to depict marriage.

The Wife of bath loved wealth more than how she loved sex. In the middle ages, women

owed their men sex and in return, they offered them punishment. Love and sex in the Wife of

Bath appear to be a form of a deal of buying and selling for the men and women respectively.

The Wife was willing to forego her sexual urges as long as the four husbands the Wife had

married gave her money which she later accumulated a lot of property and lived a comfortable

life. Although the Wife was used to the habit of marrying men with a lot of wealth her last

husband the fifth one broke this chain as he was poor but good in bed which made the Wife love

him.

The feminist gets an antifeminists husband. The fifth husband that the Wife acquires

appears to reserve antifeminist sentiments Despite being the husband she loved among all the

five she had married she decides to settle for a poor clerk and did not like to be dominated. The

wife describes that the fifth husband used to beat her and that during their first months of

marriages he refused her authoritative rule. The dominance of the fifth husband over the Wife

shows that the wife is vulnerable to love. One night as they sat by the fire the husband began

reading a book of how wicked women were but before he finished she tore three pages and

slapped and he returned and she slapped him again but they came to an agreement and he gave

the Wife full control of the house, the property, and his tongue. The wife describes this

experience by commenting:

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"And when I saw that he would never stop reading in this cursed book, all over the sudden I

plucked three leaves out his book, even as he was reading and I also struck him to the cheek with

my fist" (8).

At first, it seemed a wrong choice for the Wife to give the young husband domino over

her property because he was abusing her. The Wife says

“And I gave him all the land and wealth that I had been given, but afterward, I repented

myself sorely, for he would allow nothing I desired" (7).

This is a lesson to those that love wealth more than anything else it shows that not

everyone we meet can be perfect the Wife's first four husbands could do anything for her and

went to an extent of handing her their property but this was different with the last husband who

was young and did not respect women. It also means that we should not be too trusting, the Wife

was lucky to have a young man's respect but for the business majors out their one may not have

any luck thus the need to protect his or her property.

To conclude, The Wife of Bath can be mistaken, and women are seen to have one goal

which is to have dominance over man but this is quite opposite. The tale of the Wife of Bath

shows the various issues that fell on women during the Middle Ages such as the notion that

women have a debt to men of sex that is the idea of love and sex those days was that of buying

and sell which the Wife took advantage of and gained her wealth.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Chaucer, Geoffrey. Wife of Bath’s Tale. NeCastro, Gerard, ed. and trans. eChaucer: 2007.

http://www.umm.maine.edu/faculty/necastro/chaucer