Feminism In The Wife Of Bath's Tale

Inside Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales”, a reader finds their attention falling upon a rowdy, fair-faced woman, who has been married five times. She is open with her words, ideas, and sexuality. These features are simply unheard for women of her time. Her openness leads many readers to believe she is a woman beyond her time, a feminist even. However, upon further inspection one finds that the Wife of Bath is actually the embodiment of an anti-feminist, she is absurdly physically minded, and does not have an honest appearance.. This can be seen by her naming women as property, her idea that a man must allow a woman to govern him, and her constant belittling of other women.
In The Wife of Bath’s tale, she claims what women want most is to govern her husband. While this is already an anti-feminist ideal (feminism translates to equality among the sexes), it insinuates that a man must consent to a woman leading, as though he, by default, was to govern her. In her tale, the knight exclaimed that his new wife had "won the mastery"(413). In her tale, the knight molested a women, yet, instead of the execution, the knight completes his quest and marries a beautiful young woman. She did not mention the faring of the woman …show more content…
In her introduction from the prologue, the narrator states that she’s had “five husbands all at the church door, apart from other company in youth…”(470-471). This displays her as compulsive, and otherwise, dishonest in her intentions. Chaucer wrote her as a well-traveled woman, who is well experienced in “love's mischances”(485). She is portrayed as unrealistically lustful, which tends to a harmful reputation for women. Her tale ventured into great length over the night and hag’s wedding night, which is burdened by the old woman’s lack of beauty. The story concludes with the hag transforming herself into a beautiful woman, then consummating the unwanted