Throughout her prologue in “Canterbury Tales” by Chaucer, the Wife of Bath confirms misogynistic stereotypes of women since she presents herself as little more than what can quite technically be called a whore. Instead of being a revolutionary female figure with feminist intentions, she merely seeks husbands who will provide for her in exchange for sexual favors. For her, a “good” husband is, as she states in one of the important quotes from the Wife of Bath’s Prologue in  “The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer “goode, and riche, and olde” (line 203) and is easy prey when she decides to pull tricks such as make them think she is out at night looking for his women while she is having a good time, only to turn this around later for monetary benefit. As she willingly states to her audience, “An housbonde wol I have I wol nat lette / Which shal be both my detour and my thrall” (lines 160-161). For the Wife of Bath, money, sex, and marriage are all interlinked and none can exist without the other.

Furthermore, to support this idea about the way the Wife of Bath perpetuates negative stereotypes of women during the time of Chaucer, it is important to note that in the Wife of Bath’s prologue, if she finds that a particular man is not giving her enough money, she simply withholds sexual favors from him. While this may at first seem to be a case of a medieval woman exerting her independence, the only true power she possesses is that of her sexuality—something that she has realizes is fading with her youth. With her views on money, sex, and marriage, the only thing that seems to separate her from her from a “woman of the night” is the fact that there is a legally binding contract behind it all. This is far from a feminist ideal of a solid marriage and is much more closely aligned with ages-old misogynistic stereotypes of bad women.

When the Wife of Bath states in her prologue in “The Canterbury Tales” by Chaucer, “I would no lenger in bed abide / If that I felte his arm over my side/ Til he hadde made his ransom unto me” (lines 415-418) she is not only confirming the stereotype of women as being obsessed with money and using their sexual power to obtain it, she is also proving to her audience (both in the text and to the modern reader) that love is not something that an “empowered” woman is prone to. However, this impression of her is turned on its head and she shows herself to be a contradiction when she speaks of her last husband. He was a much younger man and beat her, but she loved this and loved this man because of it. This is an even more perplexing image of woman.

Along these lines, it becomes apparent in even a cursory analysis of “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue” in “The Canterbury Tales” by Chaucer how, when one On the one hand, the reader understands that this woman has a complex understanding of marriage, but this is not enough to compensate for the fact that she allows herself to be beaten up. Even though she does fight back on occasion, in the end she has proven herself not to be at all revolutionary or proto-feminist, instead she is simply the same version of female that occurs frequently throughout medieval and other literature. She tries to present herself as strong and independent, but in the end she is even more a part of the negative stereotype than a normal woman might be.

While it can be argued that the Wife of Bath could be an early feminist character, there are too many aspects to her that indicate how she is working within the system rather than outside of it. For a medieval woman to be truly feminist or revolutionary, she must find a way to prove herself in a manner both on part with and independent of men. The Wife of Bath chooses to use the patriarchal systems of religion (especially through her “discourses” on the Bible) and marriage to her own benefit rather than seeking more sweeping or meaningful changes.

Other essays and articles in the Literature Archives related to this topic include : Analysis and Summary of The Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale (Canterbury Tales)  •  A Comparison The Decameron and The Canterbury Tales •  Representations of Women in Medieval Literature  •  Comparison of The Book of Margery Kempe and the Pardoner’s Prologue and Tale