Wife of Bath1
Sexual relations between men and woman have created issues of life and death from the beginning of time. In most classic Western beliefs it began when Eve with the help of the Devil seduced Adam thus leading the downfall of humanity into an abyss of sin and hopelessness. This issue arises in all literature from Genesis, Chaucer and into modern day. Authors, clerks and writers of all types have aided stereotyping women throughout history and Geoffrey Chaucer is not an exception in most cases. However, in Chaucer's Wife of Bath we can find the beginnings of a new type of woman arising from the dark ages of the post-Roman era. And of course at the center of his character's struggle is sex. As this topic develops, we shall take a brief look into sex, women, the Middle Ages and Chaucer's Wife of Bath as an example of Middle Ages reflections.The woman of the Middle Ages tended to be pawns of men in religion, politics and economics (Gies). "Although a woman could hold land, inherit it, sell it or give it away and plead for it in law courts, most of a woman's life was spent under the guardian ship of a man" (Gies 41). These set standards for the
Her first was rich, but unable to fulfill her demands sexually. The image of women must be one that could plausibly absorb the unregenerate sexual passions of the male and manifest them in a way men could rationally accept" (Gregg 93). As a result she punished him by throwing a book of his into a fire, revealing a nature of woman as a punisher and a lawmaker. She tamed them by accusing them of promiscuous behavior. She conceived during the intercourse, therefor the jury acquitted the man because it ruled she must have enjoyed the sex because she conceived, which was a popular belief during the Middle Ages (Gies). The tale is that of power and who has or should have the control in a relationship is it political, economical, governmental or sexual. Is it better to make her a model of attainable perfection than to make her a model of unattainable perfection (Gregg 85). The Canterbury Tales: A Literary Pilgrimage. The wife having created the knight and using rape as a thematic device becomes a perpetual self-rapist (Williams 66). Sexual power and women"Like the Devil, women were perceived as masking their pernicious in attractive guises, and it was part of the Josh Kinman 3exemplum's purpose to unveil their subtleties and sorceress in order to underscore the need for vigilance against them" (Gregg 85).
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Acceptance Essays
