Wife of Baths Tale

Marriage in The Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale

The views of marriage expressed in both Prologue and Tale are those of the Wife; whether they are also Chaucer's is debatable: others of the pilgrims tell tales giving views of marriage, but none can speak from such extensive personal experience as the Wife of Bath, and this experience is the subject of her lengthy and chaotic prologue. The vitality of Chaucer's portrait of the Wife, and the assurance he gives her in asserting the case for wives' mastery over their husbands indicate at least sympathy, if not agreement, with her point of view.

What, then, are the views of the Wife of Bath? First, she argues from scripture and experience that marriage (despite its tribulations, to which she at once refers) is no bad thing, and that successive marriages for those who are widowed are perfectly in order. Arguments against marriage (such as the preposterous interpretation of John's account of the wedding at Cana) can be countered, the Wife shows, by demonstrating how Biblical teaching is far from clear in some places, while others give support for polygamy. (The Wife does not note that the latter are all in the Old Testament.) She shows how St. Paul, in I Corinthians, claims only to advise his readers and expressly states that this advice is no binding commandment. Elsewhere (conveniently ignoring the distinction between Old and New Testaments) the Wife notes Biblical precedent for polygamy, beginning with the obscure Lamech, continuing with Abraham and Jacob, and, reaching ridiculous proportions with Solomon, who (though the Wife does not number them) had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines (I Kings 11.3). In a humorous understatement the Wife refers to "wives mo than oon". Scripture, she says, gives no fast ruling on the matter.