Wife of beth
Wife of bethThe Wife of Bath’s Prologue contains the story of a woman that had a great experience with men and married life. She is not a typical wife of her times, but rather she represents a very masculine female. The Wife of Bath is an incredibly influential and dynamic individual, while the concept of the ideal woman at the time was to be submissive and powerless. The Wife of Bath tells the pilgrims that she has always followed her appetite, at a time when ideally women left the initiative to men. She has no children, or at least she does not mention them in her prologue and it is very uncommon for married woman at that time.
Wife of Bath shows that marriage is not as beneficial as men expect, at least with her. She defeats three of her much older husbands in argument, starting according to her at age twelve; she leads three of her husbands to give her money, lands and power before letting them to be intimate with her. In addition, she makes her husbands work hard in bed to please her. After she has all of their possessions, wife of Bath states, she wouldn’t do something that does not bring her profit or pleasure. Wife of Bath is not a stranger to adultery and believes that if her husband is satisfied it does not really matter if some one else will use her services. After all this, she does not suffer from guilt; indeed, all she cares about is her own benefits. She learns dirty tricks of man and she is not ashamed to use them. With all that she manages to reach equal level with her husbands in her marriages. For example, after being beaten, she takes control of the situation and punches her husband back. As a consequence she achieves control over the marriage and the wealth. Wife of Bath, in a sense, put her husband in his place. Now the two were equals.
She also indicates that if the wife is wise she can benefit from marriage by taking control in her own hands. From the tale told by her: the lesson is that if women have mastery over men, they will make wise decisions.