Misogyny or Misandry? One Story With Several Readings

So another one of the Canterbury Tales is called The Wife of Bath’s Tale. Chaucer’s story tells that there was a knight in the time of King Arthur who raped a fair maiden, and he was brought before Arthur’s court to be punished. The court decided to put the knight to death, but then Guinevere and the ladies of the court interceded. They decided that if the knight could find out “what thing it is that women most desire” within a year, they would spare his life. So he sets out and I’ll tell you about the ending as I go along. Scholars disagree quite a bit about whether this story is pro-feminist or anti-feminist, but I found a blog where some people think that the answer is obvious. According to the blog, The Wife of Bath’s Tale demonstrates the cruel power women have over men in a gynocentric (woman-focused) society.

Although Chaucer says the knight rapes the maiden, the blog is insistent that you remember that “most men, like most primates” don’t rape people. This is true, but why it needs to be mentioned I couldn’t say. The blog considers it typical that the knight is asked what women desire and rightly points out that “[f]ew today can even imagine asking the question, ‘what do men desire?’” but doesn’t seem to understand why this is. The question of “what women want” has plagued men throughout history because women are considered to be an alien species, mysterious and beyond comprehension. The question of what men want has been answered plenty of times—Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, the 1953 film states, and Cosmopolitan magazine strives to answer it with every issue—but in the end we know that the question is ridiculous because men want a lot of things and every man is different. It’s refreshing that Chaucer acknowledges that every woman wants something different too, because as the knight went around asking women what they most desire, he could not find “two creatures agreeing together.”

No, I don't want to know what Mel Gibson thinks women want, either.

Until, that is, he met an old woman who promised to give him the answer if he would promise to do whatever she asked. Desperate, he agreed, and she whispered into his ear what to tell the queen. In front of the court the knight declared that “without exception, women desire to have sovereignty as well over her husband as her love, and to be mastery above him.” All the women agreed, and the knight was not executed. The old woman, called the “loathly lady”, then insisted that the knight fulfill his promise by marrying her. He was horrified, but he was forced to give in. “In short, under today’s understanding,” the blog says, “he was raped.” That’s pretty awful. But perhaps we should keep in mind that the knight is in this predicament because he raped a woman by force. Moreover, the blog says, the knight didn’t receive any mercy regarding “the oppressive terms” of his “ill-considered agreement” because he was a man, but he already received mercy from the queen when he was sentenced to death, so maybe he just used up his only “get out of jail free” card.

The loathly lady realized that her new husband didn’t want to touch her because she was so ugly, so she offered him a choice: she could turn herself beautiful, with the result that she would then be plagued by suitors and wouldn’t promise to turn them down, or she could remain ugly and be a “true, humble wife” and never cheat on him and never displease him. Having learned some humility (as I say) or “repressed his desires, nullified his independent thinking, and surrendered his rational agency to his wife” (as the blog says), the knight gave the wife her choice, saying:

My lady and my love, and wife so dear,
I put me in your wise governance;
Choose yourself which may be most pleasure
And most honor to you and me also.

The blog makes it sound as if this applies to every decision ever, instead of just one that has a huge effect on the lady’s body and behavior and that she therefore has a vested interest in. She confirms:

“Then have I gotten mastery of you,” she said,
“Since I may choose and govern as I please?”
“Yes, certainly, wife,” he said, “I consider it best.”

And then she turns beautiful and declares that, since he said the right thing, she will be not only young and beautiful but a perfect, loving, obedient wife, and basically they live happily ever after. So the rapist got a “fairytale” ending instead of his head cut off, and the woman was allowed to have bodily autonomy, and the blogger thinks this is terrible. This must just be a story like the Albina myth, in which two people can happily argue the exact opposite reading with almost the exact same words. Is this a misandrist story because the woman gets control over her husband, or is it a misogynistic story because it portrays women as wanting nothing less than total control of their husbands? Is this story perpetuating negative stereotypes or advocating for some degree of autonomy for women? You decide!

A translation of the tale:

http://sites.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/teachslf/wbt-par.htm

The blog’s take on the tale:

http://gynocentrism.com/2015/09/12/wife-of-bath-criminal-justice-mens-subordination-to-women/