Wife Of Bath Ethos And Logos

“The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale” that we have been studying consists of several claims and arguments. Some of them are marriage is not a sin, women and men are equal, a wife should have the control over her husband, the husband should obey and follow his wife’s orders, and those men who did not follow the rule have to be punished by god. However, not all of the arguments are present in both the prologue and the tale. The main argument, which is present in both the prologue and the tale, is that a wife should be incharge in relationship and take control over her husband. At the same time, the husband should love and obey his wife by following her orders. In order to present her main argument, the Wife of Bath uses many types of appeals to persuade the audience.

There are three main types of appeals that were used in “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale,” ethos,

First, ethos is an appeal to ethics, credibility, integrity, authority, and expertise. Second, pathos is an appeal to emotion or feeling. Last, logos is an appeal to logic and reason.

Throughout “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale,” ethos is being used the most, while pathos and logos are harder to be found in the text. From “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue,” the first minor argument presented is that marriage is not a sin, as the god has given people choices, either to be a virgin or to be married. In order to convince the audience, the Wife of Bath uses ethos as she refers to Apostle (St. Paul) in line 15 - 19, “For then, so says the Apostle, I am free To wed … Show me a time or text where God disparages.” Through those lines, she refers that god allows everyone to get marry as long as they want to. And, she uses ethos again in line 24 - 28, which says, “All the Apostle Paul has said about it; … He left it in our judgement what to do …”, showing that being a virgin is just an advice, people are allowed to make their own decision whether to remain one.