Many tales in the Canterbury Tales make some comment about marriage. These comments offer different perspectives of marital relationships. The Wife of Bath expresses a marriage can be happy only after a woman has gained complete sovereignty over her husband. The Clerk reveals an opposite view in his...

The Wife of Bath's Prologue is different from the Tale in that it is an autobiographical debate with members of the clergy. Dame Allison, the Wife of Bath, lives in a time where oppressive customs are enforced upon women. In the Prologue she stresses her own overbearing evaluation of the positi...