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Wife Of Bath's Tale: Women In The Middle Ages

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After reading the prologue of the Wife of Bath’s Tale, it didn’t greatly astonished me. I don’t pictured women in the Middle Ages as second class citizens. In my opinion, they had more rights in Europe than they would in the Middle East or Africa today. If their husbands died, the wives were able to owe the land; the oldest child, despite being male or female, would inherit from their father; and can receive high positions (of course, not as high as the men). The most famous of all women in the Middle Ages is Eleanor of Aquitaine and Joan of Arc. I understand once women were married, they had to be subordinate to their husbands, but it was generally expected that they work alongside their husbands in their business. And once monasteries were …show more content…

Veneration of the Virgin Mary increased in those days as Marian feast days were established in the calendar of the liturgical year. For example, the Annunciation, Assumption, and Conception of Mary were being celebrated as more and more people see her as who she is: the Mother of God, which was declared a dogma of the Church at the Council of Ephesus in 431. I think it’s safe to presume that the Wife of Bath is not like the Virgin Mary at all. To me, she is given a little too much freedom in joy of love-making. During the prologue, the wife shows that she wholeheartedly endorses unlimited sexual pleasure. She even defends her case of sexual organs in the body, reasoning that they are there for a reason. And one feels pleasure during intercourse anyway, so it’s nothing to be ashamed of. As for her reason that God wants the human race to multiply, the woman says she is doing us a favor. She also adds that many biblical figures like Jacob and Solomon had multiple wives at once, so her question is, why can’t she? The Church says otherwise, so they go head-to-head on being as an authority on marriage. Besides she argues that all women ever wanted was to control their husbands, and she controlled hers with sexual power. In her story, she would torment her husbands in bed, refusing to give them sex until they exchange money for

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