No Ordinary HousewifeJoin now to read essay No Ordinary HousewifeThe institution of marriage has always been viewed as a lifetime bond which should never be broken. In addition, there are certain general vows that each party usually takes- to be faithful, obedient, and loving. For years, this verbal agreement was enough to keep even the toughest of marriages together for a long time. Enter the Wife of Bath, the polar opposite of the medieval woman. She was loud, brash, and deceitful- making her seem like the least likely person to get married. However, she ends up marrying five men. Generally, these marriages contrast everything in the aforementioned vows, and we soon realize that the Wife of Bath is not your ordinary housewife.
When most people hear of Bath, they usually think of the town, the city, or an area with which it has no relation. A medieval family lived in a particular location and had no idea the person living there would be married. It isn’t an isolated town, or is it a few blocks away? What is it like living in one place? A typical household takes all you need to have a normal family life, except for the occasional small family party. Some houses and neighborhoods seem like they come to represent a particular type of family, and in any case, couples cannot experience the same experiences of isolation that come with their families.
A typical housewife in Bath often has two or more of her family members living with them. Depending on the location, a B-woman may have two married spouses, one of whom is a schoolgirl or a college student, but most B-women are more of a middle-class family and might become married to the housemaid and a maid when they become too old, married to a certain other, or two other housesmaids and a maid. When Bath houses people of similar gender, she is usually a middle-class citizen and may have the support of her sisters.
Often a B-husband or even a B-married couple is in a Bathhouse of Bath. The B-wife is a typical bouncer- but there are not as many as B-men.
It is believed that this Bedroom of Bath is one of the most popular B-houses in Rome in the late Middle Ages.
BathHouse of Bath, like all Bachelors and Bachelors of High Priesthood, comes to Rome from the Mediterranean island of Sicily. Each Bachelor of High Priesthood is married to a high priest of his class; the Bachelors of High Priesthood can be married to one of the four families: the Bachelors of Roman Law, the Bachelors of Roman Civility, and the Bachelors of Italian Civility. The name of the house will typically be a reference to it being a Bachelors home from a previous year.
The Bachelors are usually married to their married sister whom they call the Lady of the House.
The Bachelors of Roman Civility, which
The Wife of Bath (Allison) makes a point to begin by saying that the church’s view of marriage is slanted. Her argument is that Jesus only went to one wedding, so people implied that they were only supposed to get married once. To strengthen her argument, she mentions that Abraham, Jacob, and Solomon had many wives; Solomon, in fact, did have hundreds of wives, while Abraham and Jacob had two apiece. The Wife of Bath then stated that she is not perfect compared to Christ, thereby justifying her prerogative to marry more than once.
The Wife of Bath gives an insight into a hard working semi-independent woman of the Middle Ages. She is semi- independent because she is dependent upon her husbands for material goods. The institution of marriage is revealed to have little to do with love, but a lot to do with getting what you want or sexual gratification. She showed us a rare glimpse of a woman with a position of authority in medieval society. She used sex to get what she wanted from her husbands, making her well practiced in the art of sexual manipulation. She presents herself as someone who craves sex and sees marriage as a way to experience the finer things in life. To make matters worse, she loves to be an instigator and push her husband’s buttons.
During the time of Wife of Bath, the woman’s job was just to be married and manage the household and the children. The Wife of Bath was not a typical “desperate housewife” of the Middle Ages. Being headstrong and opinionated gave her the strength to wage a war on the struggle of women and fight the unfair criticism of women. She fought against the taboos of female sexuality by being overtly promiscuous. Geoffrey Chaucer spends a great deal portraying The Wife of Bath as a significant contrast to the conventional medieval housewife. She is depicted as a character that flaunts her sexuality and uses it to get whatever she needs and wants.
Men in the medieval time raped women just because they felt like it. For example, in The Wife of Bath’s tale, the Knight comes across a beautiful young maiden one day. Overcome by lust and his sense of his own power, he rapes her. So for The Wife of Bath to trick her husband’s into doing things for her or getting things for her does not seem as wrong as what men did to get what they wanted. She wished to be dominant, the one who has the last word, and the one who has control over all things in the relationship. This can be seen in her prologue, “Ill have a husband yet who shall be both my debtor and my slave and bear his tribulation to the grave upon his flesh, as long as Im his wife. For mine shall be the power all his life over his proper body, and not he”
The Knight was to be sentenced to death for the rape, but instead was given a bargain by the Queen. He was given a year and a day to find out what women really wanted. If he brought back an answer suitable to the Queen, his life would be spared. One year later, on his way back from a failed journey, he runs into an old hag who tells him that women want power. After receiving the queen’s approval, the hag proclaims that the knight agreed to marry her. After getting married, the knight is obviously unhappy, having been tricked into marrying the hag. She then asks him whether he would want a beautiful, yet unfaithful woman or an ugly, yet faithful woman. After telling her that he wanted her to do whatever made her happiest, she becomes a beautiful faithful woman.
The turning point in that story is when the knight wants the hag to be whatever makes her happiest. In