1. For take my word for it, there is no libel
On women that the clergy will not paint,
Except when writing of a woman –saint
But never good of other women, though.
Who called the lion savage? Do you know?
By God, if women had but written stories
Like those the clergy keep in oratories,
More had been written of man‟s wickedness
Than all the sons of Adam could redress.

2.  Ithas been said, “Not everything that is
learned is contained in books.”
 Compare and contrast knowledge gained
from experience with knowledge gained from
books. In your estimation, which source is
more important? Why?

3.  What do her prologue and tale argue, and
how successfully?
 Does she support or challenge medieval and
modern stereotypes of women?
 What views of sex and marriage does she
hold, and how do the patterns of imagery
help us understand them?

4.  Deaf, gap-toothed, mature, ruddy
complexion, flamboyant taste in clothes
 Portrait focuses on her personal life as a wife
five times over, whilst the others are
described in terms of their professional lives.
What might this imply?
 What about her journey shows that she is
bold and adventurous?

5.  In Part 1, the Wife defends marriage (as
opposed to virginity)
 In Part 2, the Wife describes her married life
 In Part 3, the Wife describes her final
husband Jankin and their arguments over the
“Book of Wicked Wives”
 In the Tale itself, the Wife tells us of a rapist
knight who must answer a riddle to save his
life: What is it that women most desire?

6.  What are the Wife of Bath‟s views on
marriage?
 How does she try to gain power over her
husbands? Explain with evidence from her
prologue.

7. • Misogyny was common and accepted in
medieval times
• The idea of women as a source of evil and
trouble to men originated with the
introduction of Christianity
• Eve: wicked and stupid, and caused all
humanity to be expelled from Paradise
• Women were considered to be full of vices
and inferior to men
• St. Jerome (342 – 420) and Theophrastus
were leading misogynistic writers.

8.  Virgins
 Widows who don‟t remarry
 Married women
“It was felt that God must love virgins most
and that married people came a very poor
third in his affections.”
----------------------------------------------------------
God
Men
Women
Animals

9.  Learned and influential anti-feminist
 Spent 30 years translating the Bible into
Latin
 Held extreme views about the human body
 In particular viewed women as evil
temptresses
 Called the idea that people did not have to
be virgins to be loved by God „nauseating
trash‟

10. “Married women want many things, costly dresses,
gold, jewels, expensive items, maidservants, all
kinds of furniture. Then come prattling
complaints all the night: that one lady goes out
better dressed than she; that another is looked
up to by all. „Why did you ogle that creature
next door?‟ „Why were you talking to the maid?‟
„What did you bring from the market?‟ we are
not allowed to have a single friend or
companion. There may be in some neighbouring
city the wisest of teachers; but if we have a wife
we can neither leave her behind, nor take the
burden with us.”

11. The Wife of Bath uses her introduction and tale
to support her points that:
1. Women should be allowed to marry as many
times as they wish, and…
2. That once they are married everyone will be
happier if the woman is in charge.
How does she do this?

12.  The Wife often describes the views that are
opposite to her own then demolishes them: a
classic persuasive technique.
 Example 1: pg 291, the stories of Cana and
the Samaritan are refuted with those of King
Solomon, and God‟s words on marriage. Can
you find more examples?

13.  Humor is a classic persuasive techniques, since it gets
the audience on your side in a positive, friendly
manner. Why do so many speeches start with or
include jokes?
 The Wife‟s bawdy, jolly humour is designed to
entertain and disarm her audience.
 She parodies and satirises popular misogynistic texts
 She makes humorous analogies between sex and
other things
 By being funny, she can make her points without
sounding preachy or overbearing.
 She tells stories which show her in a bad light but her
complete honesty is both shocking and funny

14.  The Wife knows the texts of the Bible, St.
Jerome etc. and uses them to her advantage.
 Pg 260 – Abraham and Jacob
 Pg 263 – reference to the astrologer Ptolemy
 Pg 265 – parodies Theophrastus
 Pg 276/7 – references to various Bible stories
and misogynistic texts
 Do bear in mind, though, that the Wife
chooses quotes to suit herself and sometimes
takes them out of context – another classic
techniques but not a very admirable one!

15.  The Wife cleverly builds her argument using
a series of well supported points.
 She starts with the Bible
 Secondly she discusses the need to continue
the human race: „And certainly if seed were
never sown,/ How ever could virginity be
grown?‟ pg 260
 She then moves on to basic biology.

16.  The Wife cleverly builds her argument using
a series of well supported points.
 She starts with the Bible
 Secondly she discusses the need to continue
the human race: „And certainly if seed were
never sown,/ How ever could virginity be
grown?‟ pg 260
 She then moves on to basic biology.

17.  Someone has to be and it may as well be
women since men have the natural
advantage of patience and wisdom
 Men want sex and women want money so it‟s
the perfect arrangement
 Marriages are only happy once the wife is in
charge – both in the prologue and the tale.
But happy for whom? Her logic is more
flawed here.

18.  The Wife does not try to set herself up as an
ideal for others to follow, “I‟ll make no boast
about my own estate” pg 261
 She compares herself to a wooden bowl (not
a gold one), a barley bread (not a pure
wheat loaf)
 „God calls his folk to him in many ways‟ pg
261

19.  „Oneof us must be master, man or wife,
And since a man‟s more reasonable, he
should be the patient one, you must agree‟

20.  On pg 266 the Wife is berating her husband
and mentions many of the common
complaints against women: they scold, they
want to be praised all the time, they want to
be called pretty names in public, they want
dinner out on their birthday and
presents, etc
 Her response? „That‟s what you say, old
barrelful of lies!‟
 The fact that this section satirises
Theophrates strengthens the challenge to
stereotypes here.

21.  She
is clever and articulate and
knowledgeable; not the ignorant, stupid
woman that the clerks described

22.  Her account of her treatment of her first three
husbands glories in how she scolded them, took their
money, and made their lives a misery: „O Lord, I
wrecked their peace,/ Innocent as they
were, without remorse!‟ pg 268 – she is a
troublemaker who made her husbands suffer.
 She seems to value relationships for what she can get
out of them – comes across as a medieval gold digger
 She seems to argue that drunk women get what they
deserve – your classic anti-woman rape defence even
today (pg 271)
 She loves her fifth husband best even though he
beats her, supporting the stereotypical idea that
women only love the bad or hard to get guys. (pg
272)
 She is bossy and lustful.

23. “Without the stereotypes there would be no
character of The Wife of Bath. But she is not
herself a stereotype. Instead, Chaucer
exploits all the traditional things men wrote
about women and creates a woman who is
bigger than all of them. She is a very
complex character, new and original but
created out of traditions which are very
ancient.”

24.  „A man must yield his wife her debt‟ pg 262
 „You shan‟t have both, you can‟t be such a
noddy/ As think to keep my goods and have my
body/ One you must do without, whatever you
say.‟ pg 267
 Pg 269 she would not let her husbands near her
until they „paid a fee‟ and tells every man „It‟s
all for sale and let him win who can‟
 Pg 275 she recounts how she gave her money to
Jankyn as an act of love, only to regret it later;
the tables have been turned!

25.  Medieval church did not approve of sex;
some claimed only happened after Eve‟s fall.
 Should only happen in marriage, for
procreation; not pleasure
 Women = dangerous sexual creatures with
cold bodies needing warming by men
 WOB glories in this: constant references to
sex and her vagina are enthusiastic and
unapologetic
 She presents a view of sex as natural,
unsinful, and pleasurable.

26.  Much of the sex is to do with power
 The knight rapes the maiden instead of
wooing her (anti-romantic?)
 Women most desire power over men
 Alison describes using men‟s desires for sex
to dominate her first 3 husbands
 Her description of dominating men is
fantastical in medieval society; it showshow
much the Wife challenges the norm.

27. A great deal of animal imagery is used
(sheep, spaniel, goose, ox, ass, hound, cat, h
awk, magpie, nightingale etc) and it almost
entirely refers to women
 Women were considered closer to animals
than men were and were often compared to
them, unflatteringly
 Animals are considered to lack reason: men
are only compared to them when out of
control, e.g. drunken as a mouse