Geoggrey Chaucer And The Church Analysis

Chaucer and The Church In Geoggrey Chaucer’s, The Canterbury Tales, 29 people are on a pilgrimage to Canterbury to worship the shrine of the martyr Saint Thomas Becket. One of these pilgrims is a Wife of Bath. She has a unique story; she has wedded five different men. During this time, (The Medieval Times) The Church was one of the most powerful institutions in Europe. The Church had an immense influence on people and governments all across Europe. In the Medieval times, The Church looked down upon women marrying more than once. It was a different time where women did not have much say in society, and the Wife of Bath was against this form of reasoning. The Church’s theory of marriage includes misogyny views, where women were powerless …show more content…
During Medieval times, women had no place in society. The Wife of Bath made it certain for her to have a place in society. For every husband she married, she would obtain wealth from them by taking their lands and money. This was unheard of in Medieval times. The Wife of Bath accused her former husbands talking about how women will kill their husbands and accuse them of infidelity. After she would accuse them of these things, she said “I did them no pleasure, and I chided; I would no longer in the bed abide, If I felt his arm come over my side till he had paid his ransom down to me; then I’d suffer him to do his foolery (Line 412)” she would not have sex with them until they won her back with money, and this is how she created her domination role in her marriages. The role of her domination is also created because of her survival instincts. She knows that in her society, where misogyny is tolerable she will not be able to survive. Madsen explores domination in “Remember… Whose Girl Are you”, she states that through survival, destruction and domination arise in a relationship. The Wife of Bath is witness to this theory, in order to survive she dominates her partners through destruction in sex and their position in