Canterbury Tales Essay - Marriage and the Role of Women in the Wife of

Marriage and the subroutine of Women in the Wife of lavs Prologue The Canterbury Tales, begun in 1387 by Geoffrey Chaucer, be written in heroic couplets iambic pentameters, and consist of a series of twenty-four linked humbugs told by a group of superbly characterized pilgrims ranging from gymnastic horse to Plowman. The characters meet at an Inn, in London, before journeying to the shrine of St doubting Thomas a Becket at Canterbury. The Wife of Bath is one of these characters. She bases both her tale and her prologue on marriage and brings humor and intrigue to the tales, as she is lively and really often crudely spoken. Her role as a dominant effeminate contrasts greatly with the others in the tales, like the prim and proper Prioress represents the line of business for virginity, whereas the Wife upholds the state of marriage. Women were very much perceived as second-class citizens in the Fourteenth Century, they were rarely educated and had little status in edict. In contrast, the two female characters in the book are from areas of society where it was possible for women to have influence probably as these characters would hold more than interest for his readership. The prioress was undoubtedly the most powerful person in the nunnery and the Wifes position as a weaver would make water her respect and power although it is implied that she achieves this through other means. Through the Wife Chaucer shows how women achieved potence through marriage, using humor typical of sophisticated mother-in-law comedy. His tongue in cheek approach shows how the Wife controls her husbands, by terrorizing them so that each were ful joyful when she spake to hem faire. The reason for the Wifes cruel treatment subsequently marriage was that she no longer needed to winne hir love, or do... ...ant in the modern day church. The aspects of marriage portrayed in the Wife of Baths prologue feature heavily around sexual pleasure and wealth. Her description shows the beat for power causes conflict, occasional violence and abuse all the while she is justifying her modus vivendi and fighting for female equality. Despite no fidelity, love, or trust as deceit and affairs that seem to be commonplace the Wife of Bath s description of married life is very much a comical one, which she does seem to enjoy especially if she achieves fulfillment. Altogether Chaucers portraiture of 14th Century married life is at best a humorous battleground for independence, wealth and pleasures of the flesh. Works CitedChaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. The Norton Anthology English Literature. Sixth Edition, vol. 1. Ed. Abrams, M.H. Norton & friendship New York, 1993.