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A Summary and Analysis of Geoffrey Chaucer’s ‘The Wife of Bath’s Tale’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

The Wife of Bath is one of the most famous characters in all of Chaucer’s poetry, and ‘The Wife of Bath’s Tale’ remains a popular tale from The Canterbury Tales . But what can this tale tell us about medieval attitudes to women and marriage?

You can read ‘The Wife of Bath’s Tale’ in the original Middle English here before proceeding to our summary and analysis below.

‘The Wife of Bath’s Tale’: plot summary

The Wife of Bath begins her tale with a long Prologue about herself, and her various marriages: she has had five husbands. She considers various people’s views of marriage but rejects all of them, drawing on her own experience to do so. The picture of her that emerges is a surprisingly spirited and independent woman for the fourteenth century: she has used her sexuality to earn money, and has clearly ‘worn the trousers’ in many of her marriages, making her husbands’ lives difficult.

She can clearly give as good as she has got where men are concerned, telling us that her fourth husband would lust after other women, but she cheated on him with a friend’s lodger. When the lecherous husband died, she married the lodger, but he beat her, calling her a wicked wife and using the authority of a conduct manual about good wifely behaviour to tell her off.

One day, when he struck her, she pretended to lie down dead, as though he had killed her, and he immediately broke down and swore to be ruled by her if she would only recover. She promptly got up and made him destroy his conduct book. Thereafter, they enjoyed the perfect marriage together.

Following this lengthy autobiographical preamble, the Wife of Bath gets around to telling her tale. It is set at the court of King Arthur. A young knight rapes a girl. Although he should be executed for his crime, the king lets the queen decide his fate. The queen gives the young man a year and a day to go and find out what it is women most desire; if he fails, he will be beheaded.

The knight leaves the court and travels around for a year, but fails to discover the answer to the queen’s question. On his way back to the court, ready to submit to his fate and accept his execution, he comes across an old hag in a forest. She tells him that she can give him the answer, but only on condition that he accepts the first request she makes of him. The desperate knight agrees, and the two of them travel back to court together.

The hag is presented before the king and queen, and answers the queen’s question: that what women most desire is to have sovereignty over their husbands and their lovers. The queen reveals that this is the correct answer to the question she posed to the knight, and his life is spared. But then the hag makes her request of him: that he must agree to marry her. He begs her to ask for something else, but she is having none of it. So they are married, and he must go to bed with her.

As they prepare to consummate the marriage, the hag lectures the knight on the meaning of true nobility and honour. She then gives him a choice: he can either have a wife who is ugly but faithful, or beautiful but unfaithful. He lets her make the decision, and she is transformed into a beautiful woman who will also be faithful to him: the best of both worlds. Because he has submitted to her will and let her have sovereignty over him, his reward is a wife who is both beautiful and true to him.

‘The Wife of Bath’s Tale’: analysis

The Wife of Bath, when placed alongside Chaucer’s other female pilgrims and the women who feature in the other stories of The Canterbury Tales , may strike us as more iconoclastic and radical than she actually was. In truth, when Chaucer wrote ‘The Wife of Bath’s Tale’ in the late fourteenth century there was already a burgeoning body of anti-marriage literature, whose authors put forward much the same views about women and marriage as the Wife of Bath espouses.

Although some of the women in the other tales may seem meek and submissive, paragons of wifely virtue and patience, the Wife of Bath was not a complete outlier in Chaucer’s society. Rather, like his other pilgrims, she represents a certain type that was common in medieval English society, and embodies it thoroughly.

Of course, modern feminist critics can easily detect some serious problems with the plot of ‘The Wife of Bath’s Tale’: a man violates a woman, is then spared death thanks to a woman (the queen), and is then provided with the means to clear himself of all charges thanks to another woman (the hag).

He has to give up his freedom and submit to being married to a hideous aged woman whose very touch and appearance he recoils from, but we might well respond that that serves him right, and he’s welcome to present his head beneath the executioner’s axe if he prefers. And in the end, simply by handing over his fate to the woman, he is rewarded with a beautiful and loyal wife. We can hardly view ‘The Wife of Bath’s Tale’ as a cautionary tale against male violence towards women, when such a ‘punishment’ is promised.

However, through violating the woman, the knight essentially emasculates himself, so there is something more interesting going on in the gender power dynamics of this tale. In being caught having committed such a horrendous act, he has to submit to the king’s judgment, but the queen is instead given the power to decide his fate. He is then dependent on a woman to ‘rescue’ him and, in a sense, restore his masculinity – but only on an even footing with his wife, rather than by having the upper hand.

This is what makes ‘The Wife of Bath’s Tale’ a startlingly modern tale for twenty-first-century readers: the Wife of Bath’s own life, and the tale she tells, both offer a vision of marriage in which men and women are given equal power rather than the husband having power over his wife.

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“The Wife of Bath’s Tale” by Geoffrey Chaucer Essay

Introduction, religious motifs, bodily description, name of the character.

The main character depicted by Chaucer in the Wife of Bath’s Prologue is an eccentric woman whose religious worldviews, attitudes to spousal relations, and overall appearance oppose the conventional views on morality that dominated during the epoch in which the tale is set. By analyzing the descriptions of the Wife’s visual image, as well as her perspectives on the issues of marriage, it is possible to identify why the character challenges the conventional notion of wifehood.

It can be argued that by using particular ways of the character’s representation and stylistic devices, Chaucer aimed to criticize the noncompliance with the Medieval religious and moral doctrines. To verify this idea, such aspects of the Wife’s image as her religious views, attitudes to marriage, appearance, and name will be discussed in the paper.

The character’s interpretation of religious beliefs is one of the most significant elements in her representation. During the period described in the literary piece, the Church had a powerful position in the society. Thus, religious motifs were the first to define individuals’ behaviors in various spheres of life. The Wife, however, has an unconventional religious perspective, which mainly serves to justify her lustful lifestyle. For instance, she uses some ideas provided in the Bible as an excuse for adultery.

From her point of view, reproduction is the major reason for the engagement in spousal relations. For this reason, she had “five husbands at the church door,” which means that all the Wife’s relations are legal and compliant with the rules of religion. Nevertheless, they are rather controversial from the perspective of morality as she sees marriage as a means for prosperity and sensual satisfaction

The Wife argues against the biblical prohibition on remarriage after widowhood. From her stance, there is no evil in “marrying two, or…marrying eight.” To support this idea, she refers to the Bible and compares herself to king Solomon who had many wives. She says, “I believe he had wives more than one,” and states that since God approved Solomon’s polygamy, it could not be that detrimental to her either. For her, Solomon’s multiple marriages justify all the marriages she had herself.

Overall, it seems the Wife misreads the main biblical idea about the marriage. Nevertheless, she might do it intentionally because, for her, marriage is the primary source of profit that would be accepted by the society. For this reason, religion becomes a cover-up for her moral impurity and unconventional behavior.

The description of the Wife’s body and appearance helps understand the character’s features more deeply. In general, her image can be characterized as voluptuous and seductive. The character stated that she frequently used her body as an “instrument” to manipulate men and achieve anything she wanted: “In wifehood I will use my instrument as freely as my Maker has it sent.” These lines can be regarded as a demonstration of the Wife’s vicious nature.

It is apparent that she likes corporal pleasures as well: “If I be niggardly, God me sorrow! My husband shall have it both evenings and mornings.” The woman often says that her numerous husbands had to “please her” and considers pleasure one of the most important aspects of marriage.

Overall, the character’s hypersexuality is supported by the image of her body, which she considers is created for satisfaction and corporal pleasures. At the same time, the author also endows her with some ugly traits, e.g., “teeth set wide apart.” Moreover, although the Wife is still energetic, she is far from being young and it seems that her behavior and views do not match with her age that well. Thus, it is possible to presume that the Wife’s appearance as such reflects her inner world to a large extent − she may seem to be visually attractive, yet there is still place for ugliness.

The representation of the Wifes image is completed by a detailed description of her clothes. It is worth noticing that during the period in which the plot is set, people usually dressed simply, but the Wife, on the contrary, prefers unusual and extravagant clothing. The Wife’s manner of dressing attracts attention as it is bright and ostentatious. For example, “her hose were of the choicest scarlet red, close gartered.” Red gloves and red stockings are the two things that apparently make people talk about her most.

Additionally, she wears this type of clothing on Sundays when people go to Church and are supposed to be especially humble. Additionally, she usually wears expensive garments. For instance, “her kerchiefs were on fines weave and ground;…they weighted full ten pounds.” It means that the Wife’s income is rather high and indicates her belonging to the privileged social class.

Overall, Chaucer created the image of a woman who wants to be noticed and show herself off. Additionally, it is possible to say that her privileged social status and unusual behaviors are emphasized by the way she dresses.

Chaucer uses color as a powerful stylistic device to attract readers attention to particular things. The red color is often utilized to describe the main character. As it was mentioned in the previous section of the paper, the character’s wears red stockings and gloves. This color is very bright, and it differentiates her from others. Additionally, since red is traditionally associated with passion, in the tale, the character’s red clothing can symbolize that she is full of desires.

In comparison to the wife, most of the women in the Medieval era used to be shy and compliant. To show this, they wore plain and simple clothes. In this context, red clothing can be considered eccentric. Based on this, it is possible to assume that Chaucer wants to show that the Wife enjoys the attention.

In Chaucer’s tale, the character does not a have a personal name. She is simply called the Wife. The given stylistic device could be used by the author generalize the features of the character, i.e., he aimed to speak about the wifehood in general.

However, since it is unlikely that all women of that time demonstrated the same feelings, emotions, and desires that the Wife had, the generalized name could be used as an element of irony because, on the one hand, the character constantly pursues marriage but, on the other hand, completely misunderstands its true implications and dominant ideas regarding spousal relations of the Medieval epoch. Overall, by referring to the character as the Wife, Chaucer implicitly criticizes her behavior and uses her figure to indicate the boundaries of ethical spousal and intimate relationships.

The deviant nature of the character is reflected in her appearance, attitudes, interpretation of religious texts, and openly expressed sensuous desires. She is represented as a passionate person, whose manner of dressing along with the worldviews as such could shock the Medieval public. Thus, although she is called the Wife, her figure is rather endowed with unconventional features as she defies traditional expectations pertaining to the feminine gender role.

Overall, Chaucer does not criticize the Wife explicitly. However, he may imply that, although the old woman swaggers and preens, her very figure and behavior are ugly. In this implication, the author’s pursuit of justice and moralism can be found.

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"The Wife of Bath's Tale": a Theme of Power and Gender

Table of contents, the wife of bath's assertion of power, gender roles and transformation, challenging stereotypes and assumptions, women's agency and empowerment.

Chaucer, G. (14th century). The Wife of Bath's Tale. The Canterbury Tales.
Gray, D. (2013). Gender and Power in Medieval Exegesis. Oxford University Press.
Mann, J. S. (1997). Feminizing Chaucer. Boydell & Brewer.
Newman, F. X. (2010). The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale. The Open Access Companion to the Canterbury Tales.
Winny, J. (2016). The Idea of Matriarchy in Chaucer's The Wife of Bath's Tale. In S. Butler (Ed.), New Directions in Medieval Manuscript Studies and Reading Practices: Essays in Honour of Derek Pearsall (pp. 212-227). Springer.

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Wife of Bath Essay Examples

Character analysis of the wife of bath.

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