1. History vs. Herstory:
Why Women Don’t Mind That Their
Husbands Aren’t Really Listening
The Wife of Bath’s Prologue & Tale

2. The Prologue
❖ The “Wife” (Alisoun) tells the tale of her life and how she
comes to have five husbands.
❖ She is characterized by her fondness of extravagance as well
as her manipulative nature.
❖ Withholds sex to get her way
❖ Is deeply satisfied by her husbands’ total submission
❖ She decries the importance of virginity against the necessity
of procreation.

3. The Tale
❖ Sir Gawain rapes a woman (a crime punishable by death)
❖ Guinevere and the women of the court are left to decide his
fate; they give him a year to answer the question of what
women want more than anything else.
❖ He ventures out, asking many women the question and
receiving different answers at each turn
❖ He finally meets a hag at the end of his year who promises
to help him if he’ll grant her one request. He agrees.

4. The Tale (continued)
❖ The hag answers that all women want sovereignty over their husbands;
Guinevere accepts this and Gawain is freed.
❖ The hag requests that Gawain marries her.* Despite his protests, they
are married.
❖ In their marriage bed, he is presented with two options:
❖ Her faithfulness at the cost of her remaining ugly or
❖ Her beauty at the cost of her infidelity.
❖ He ultimately lets her choose whatever she finds most pleasing and
honorable. She becomes beautiful and remains faithful and they live
happily ever after.

5. Cultural Context
❖ The lower side of human nature was considered to be
predominant in women, so anti-feminist writings like this
were common.
❖ Virginity was exalted above marriage by most, but the
greatest exception was the monk Jovinian
❖ He wrote that marriage is a positive good rather than
necessary evil

6. What do the stereotypes
presented in the character
Alisoun (the wife) illustrate
about the attitudes toward
women at the time?
How do those attitudes
compare to those of our
modern society?

7. Stereotypes of Women:
Then and Today
❖ Role of misogyny in the narration ❖ Fills temptress archetype
❖ Wife acts as rejecting concept ❖ Dominates older husbands with
sexuality
❖ Concept is still very much
present in entire tale ❖ Demands money in return for
pleasure
❖ Wife of Bath’s character highly
sexualized ❖ Material vs Pleasure motivated
❖ Physical descriptions from ❖ Both operate independently but
Prologue simultaneously in Wife of Bath’s
character
❖ Attitudes she expresses about
nature of virginity

8. Why did Alisoun choose to tell the tale of
the Knight and the Hag?
How does it reflect herself?
“Wommen desire to have sovereinetee
As wel over hir housbonde as hir love,
And for to been in maistrye him above.”

9. Who are you calling a hag?
❖ Tells tale to present a moral ❖ Hag is physical manifestation of the
Wife’s attitude
❖ Like fairy tales: fictional setting
to present a real moral ❖ Matches husbands’ level of surrender
❖ Makes her own, specific to her ❖ Once she gains sovereignty, becomes a
needs “good” and beautiful wife
❖ Wife puts self in story as the Hag ❖ As with 5th husband, he freely gave her
sovereignty
❖ Desire one thing above all else:
dominion ❖ He was her “worst” husband, became the
best
❖ Acts disagreeably, is a “bad wife”
at first, but transforms

10. Alisoun misquotes the Bible but is
not corrected by the churchmen to
whom she is telling her story. What
does this say about the attitudes of
and toward churchmen then and now?

11. What are they even talking
about?
❖ The Churchmen don’t know
much about what they preach.
❖ She spends time defending
her behavior by misquoting
and misinterpreting the Bible.
❖ She uses the Bible as an
equalizer to create a
semblance of equality with
her audience.

12. The wife literally “takes a leaf out of her
husband’s book.” How does this expression
reflect her life and story figuratively?

13. I see what you did there.
❖ Roughly means “a person adopts another’s traits or actions
for his or her own advantage.”
❖ Alisoun takes a page out of her husband’s book of “wikked
wives”
❖ “Subdues” her husband by acting as a wicked wife would
❖ She consistently defies traditional gender roles
❖ Justified by citing Biblical anecdotes where her same
actions are considered acceptable when men do them

14. Alisoun’s view...
if things were reversed
“Who painted the leon, tel me who?”

15. Chaucer creates a woman,
but discredits her views by identifying her
power with evil.
❖ Alisoun’s View: ❖ Reader’s Perspective:
❖ Book of “wikked ❖ She states if men were
wives” (actions, without written with more
cause of reaction) wickedness maybe the roles
would be different (line 701)
❖ The bible is the weapon to
subdue a woman ❖ Chaucer shows her character
to be an example of the
❖ The amount of bad/evil women they speak of in the
women in the bible vs. bible & wicked wives book
men
❖ Thus discrediting her view

16. What is Alisoun’s perspective on the
institution of marriage (e.g. is marriage a
necessary evil or expression of love)?
Is it different than that of the tale as a whole?
Has this dynamic changed in today’s society?

17. What’s LOVE
got to do with it?
❖ First 3 husbands were wealthy, but much
older than she
❖ With having inherited a lot of wealth
from the previous marriages she can now
be more particular about her new partner.
❖ Also gains the luxury of marrying
solely for love
❖ She claims to have married her 5th
husband for Love, but she treats him the
worst.

18. Thanks!