The Canterbury Tales: The Wife of Bath's Prologue Women and Femininity Quotes

This is the first of the Wife's pronouncements about what a wise woman ought to do, or does. Most of these pronouncements are, like this one, concerned with teaching women how to place themselves in a position of greater power in a relationship. Here the Wife advises that it's always better to make a man fall in love with you so that you can use his love to gain power over him.

The Wife's address to "ye wyse wyves" is curious, given the fact that there are no other married women in the company of pilgrims (all the other women on pilgrimage are nuns). This is a moment where the imaginary setting gives way to the poem's knowledge of itself as a poem, addressed to a wider audience that probably includes wives.

This is not the last time the Wife will refer to the antifeminist stereotype of women as expert liars. Her emphasis upon this is puzzling given her desire to make believable arguments. Doesn't her insistence that all women are great liars undermine her credibility a bit?

A wise wife will tell her husband that "the cow is wood," or the crow is crazy. This statement refers to stories common at this time period, of which Chaucer's "Manciple's Tale" is one, in which speaking birds tell a husband about his wife's unfaithfulness. The Wife is saying that it's in a woman's best interest that her husband never find out about her unfaithfulness.

The Wife's point here is that women are damned if they do and damned if they don't; no matter what a woman is or does, men will always view her as potentially desired by other men. The reference to a castle wall that men are trying to "keep" emphasizes the way in which men treat women as property.

This statement continues the women-are-damned-if-they-do-damned-if-they-don't argument the Wife has just made with the notion that even ugly women are un-"keep"-able. It also continues the objectification of women by comparing a woman to a spaniel (a kind of dog).

The idea that women are out to entrap men into marriage, after which they feel free to be their true, heinous selves, adds the vices of manipulative-ness and deceptiveness to the ones the women are supposedly hiding before their wedding day.

Here is the Wife's first intimation that what women desire above all in their relationships is sovereignty – they long, in other words, to be their own masters. This claim later takes a more sinister turn when the Wife demonstrates that a woman desires sovereignty not only over herself, but also over her husband.

This reference to woman's love as consuming is difficult to interpret. It might be accusing women of excessive lust, which would be consistent with the metaphor of burning (i.e., burning lust). This also fits well with the Wife's own portrayal of herself as excessively lustful.

The idea that deceit, weeping, and spinning were the tools natural to womankind is not original to the Wife of Bath, but was a common maxim at this time period. Deceit is definitely a morally reprehensible tool, but since the other two tools, weeping and spinning, seem feeble in comparison, the deceit women use almost begins to seem justified. If those were your only tools, which one would you use?

Here the Wife strategically uses antifeminist sentiment to get the upper hand in her relationship. Antifeminist discourse holds that women lack reason. Therefore, says the Wife, the man ought to give way first in any argument, since it's impossible for the woman to be made to see reason.

The Wife's claim that lecherous men know that a woman who's been drinking is unable to resist sex is a sobering attestation to the prevalence of sexual assault in the Wife's experience.

This statement is reminiscent of the Wife's earlier claim that wise women are quick to go after a love they do not possess. There, this pursuit seemed strategic, a way for women to ensure they were the one with greater power in the relationship. Here, on the other hand, it seems simply emotional, a "queynte fantasye" or eccentricity in women.

Now the "queynte fantasye" to which the Wife referred above becomes again strategic: it's just economics, the Wife seems to be saying. If a man withholds himself from the market, he creates scarcity, causing the woman to out her "chaffare," or goods, to purchase him. It's no great thing for a woman to win a man that anyone could buy. The "queynte fantasye" is revealed to be a strategy that increases a woman's status the same way the purchase of an expensive hat might.

Here the Wife begins to reflect on the reasons behind the antifeminist sentiments she's been exploring in her Prologue. The Wife says that clerks, or writers, slander all women except saints. The implicit point here is that a woman has to be a saint in order to merit a good word from a male writer. Ordinary women don't stand a chance.

The Wife implies here that women lack only the opportunity, and not the ability, to write stories about men. Since women at this time period rarely had access to education, most simply did not possess the skills necessary to become writers. Without taking the pen, they could not combat the antifeminist writings that depicted them negatively.

The Wife is calling women the children of Venus and men the children of Mercury. This astrology implies that one cannot prosper while the other does and, therefore, (male) clerks will never speak well of women, in order to ensure their own prosperity. This quote is not the first one in which the Wife uses astrology to explain something; she also claims the mark of Venus on her face is what causes her to be so lusty.

With this statement, the Wife implies that a clerk's slander of women may be due to jealousy or curmudgeonly-ness due to impotence in age. If the clerk isn't having sex, maybe he doesn't want anyone else to be having it either. If he discourages marriage, maybe no one will!

This cascade of antifeminist proverbs from Jankyn is the straw that breaks the camel's back as far as the Wife's tolerance of his "preaching" is concerned. The way the proverbs are cited one after the other ups the intensity of the antifeminism here. After all, the stories Jankyn has read are also horrible portraits of women, but having the points stated so baldly and succinctly here helps us to understand the ugliness and relentlessness of the antifeminism the Wife must confront.