Canterbury Tales - Wife Of Bath

Themes:

-Femininity
-Sex
-Power
-Old Age
-Love

Quotations:

"A wys womman wol bisye hire evere in oonTo gete hire love, ye, ther as she hath noon.(215-216)"
"An housbonde I wol have, I wol nat lette,Which shal be both my dettour and my thral,And have his tribulacioun withalUpon his flessh, wyl that I am his wif. (160-163)"

Commentary:

-In this quote, you can see that the Wife of Bath is advising what a "wise" women should and shouldn't do. Her intentions is to teach and inform women of all ages that the power should reside with the woman in a relationship. She claims that its important to make a man fall in love with you first so that later in the relationship, you are able to manipulate him so that the woman will have power over him.

-This quote demonstrates the idea of old age marriages called "marriage debt". This refers to the concept that a wife and husband owe each other sex. She is casting her husband as a debtor. She is claiming that this idea refers to the perspective that her husband is her slave.  In her eyes, the debt is passed between the husband and wife, so that the power some how resides with the woman. 

Connections:

• One connection that can be made is to the world. From my perspective, love in the 20th century was based around the man. Women were supposed to sacrifice their life for one shaped around their husband. I think that modern love has twisted those ideas, making it much easier for women to feel empowered. It is much harder to prove your love for a woman, and once you do you are under her "power".
• I can connect the Wife of Baths ideals to my own in some aspects. I believe that love is truly ageless and that love cannot be based on the outer shell of human beings. I think that it is a sign of shallowness when people decide whether or not a person is worthy of their time based on their looks. 

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