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:
The blog’s take on the tale:
http://gynocentrism.com/2015/09/12/wife-of-bath-criminal-justice-mens-subordination-to-women/
