Concept of marriage in the Wife of Bath’s Prologue
Through the Wife of Bath’s Prologue, the theme of love and marriage are heavily
explored. Chaucer was aware of the wide spread ideas related to love and marriage in
the fourteenth century and this awareness can be felt when we read the prologue.
During Chaucer’s time, marriage was considered as a bargain. It had no relationship with
love. It was done for financial security and social safety. It was a kind of economic deal
made between the two parties. Janet Hubbard-Brown opines, ‘Love was not the goal in
upper-middle-class marriages. In fact, love between a husband and wife was viewed as
almost impossible’. On the other hand, the idea of ‘courtly love’ was coming into
existence as a result of the introduction of the French culture. The tradition of ‘courtly
love’ would deify a mistress. The mistress was considered as a goddess and the lover
was like a priest paying homage to the deity. In spite of such idolatry, the woman was
not granted power as the lover tried to bring her under his domination by trying to
seduce her. After marriage, such idolization was over. Alison of Bath is an iconoclast as
challenges the normative ideas of love and marriage. Her confessional prologue is
indicative of her dissident nature.
Marriage for Alison is not a heartless institution. It is not a prison-house where individual
rights are curbed. She wants to carve out a dignified position for herself within the
institution of marriage by hook or by crook. To word it differently, she can not relinquish
individuality for financial security. Obviously, by reading Alison’s description of her
married life one does not form a high regard for Alison. She lies, cheats and quarrels
with men. This aspect of her character is shocking to us. However, one can see that
Chaucer is trying to group together misogynist images prevalent in the medieval period.
Alison of Bath, apparently, can be fitted in to the category of ‘wicked women’ repeatedly
projected in the medieval narratives. Biblical projection of Eve as a source of all trouble
for men, Jerome’s depiction of women as seductress or Theophrastus’s anti-feminist
speeches are referred to by Chaucer. However, all such ideas are coming from a woman
who is inverting the Scriptural narratives. We can understand how Chaucer is ferreting
something novel out of corpus of anti-feminist writings.
Alison takes up the cudgels on behalf of women. She wants dignity and respectability.
She turns the patriarchal norms of fourteenth-century society on its head. Church courts
set the guidelines for marriage, and they were rarely challenged, as the church was
considered to be all-knowing. When a woman was betrothed to man through her
parents, the bride’s parents would often give a portion of their land to the man. The
bride was expected to serve her husband in times of peace and war – and in the
drudgery of daily domestic chores. Girls were taught how to be good wives, how to
please their husband, and how to nurture their children. The rulebooks for marriage and
relationships were written by men. Women were told they should not be arrogant,
answer back, or contradict their husbands. Alison cannot accept such a view of
marriage. She unveils her mind through the autobiographical prologue. She tells how she
subverted the system, offered a counter-attack by appropriating the traditional methods
which the husbands used to adopt to subjugate their wives.
The Wife of Bath is the obverse of the ideal woman of courtly love. She has already been
married five times and is looking for the sixth husband. She culls quotation from
different Scriptures to corroborate her act of doing multiple marriages. She adduces
biblical examples, including the woman of Samaria, Solomon, Abraham, and Jacob – all of
whom had married more than once. She supported her multiple marriages by saying
“Bet is to wedded than to brynne” (better to be married than to burn with sexual desire).
She challenges the romanticization of virginity with clever argument. According to her,
the organs of reproduction are created by God for both purgation and pleasure. They are
not made for nothing but meant to be enjoyed.
The Wife of bath describe he own marital history in terms that are very much those of
the world of fabliau, but then, through her intense imagining of a life in which women
would be valued at their true worth and treated with real gentilesse, she transcends that
world. From the rough-and-tumble of her fifth marriage she emerges into equilibrium of
mutual respect, and the passage from her prologue to her tale simultaneously a passage
from fabliau to romance.
Chaucer’s mind is capacious enough to recognize the dignity of women in marriage. By
challenging the ideal code of conduct canvassed by the Scriptures, the Wife of Bath
wants to point out that she wants to be recognized and valued as a woman – something
he society will hardly give.
