“The Wife of Bath as a Resistance to Norms of Femininity” by Michele O’Reilly
Interpretations of The Wife of Bath’s Prologue, by Geoffrey Chaucer, have created much controversy over the decades. Some claim the Wife is a representation of the misogynistic stereotypes perpetuated in the Middle Ages, while others view her character as a sort of protofeminist who argues in favor of women’s rights. However, a third understanding of her character is often overlooked. There is truth to both previous arguments. The character undoubtedly makes a case against the hypocrisy of the stigmas against women remarrying versus men and places an emphasis on the sexual freedom she enjoyed in several of her marriages. However, to say she is a feminist overlooks the antifeminist dialogue she has throughout the poem. The character is a landowning, independent, and headstrong woman. She holds much power in her positions. These characteristics do not necessarily make her a feminist. Upon close reading of the poem, it is clear that her character is not an embodiment of protofeminism or its antithesis, instead, it is a representation of resistance to gendered norms of femininity and stereotypes that were perpetuated in the Middle Ages by clerical texts written by men. Her dialogue is composed primarily of antifeminist text with origins in the bible that were amplified by medieval antifeminist and anti-marriage literature. Through this technique, the character's role is to question the authority that men claim to have in discussing women and their stories.
The prologue begins with the Wife questioning the stigma associated with women remarrying. She begins by referencing the bible, or, rather, the bibles lack of specification on the number of husbands that a woman is allowed to have. She goes on to present the question of “Why… men'' have the authority to “thanne speke of [women remarying as]” evil when “no nombre mencion made [God]” [God made no mention of number] regarding the number of husbands a woman should have in a lifetime (Chaucer 32,34). This text presents the core of the Wife’s role: to question why men feel they have the authority to speak of what is and is not deemed fitting for women to do. The Wife continues this resistance against gendered norms and expectations of women by recounting the hypocrisy behind such an expectation that women marry only once. She alludes to Solomon, Abraham, and Jacob, describing that “ech of hem hadde wyves mo than two” [each of them had more than two wives] and questions “Wher hy God defended mariage” (Chaucer 57, 60). In providing examples of holy men who were said to have had more than one spouse, the Wife creates a division between the words of the bible and the stigmas perpetuated in the Middle Ages relating to having several spouses. This provides the first example of the Wife’s critique and questioning of male authority in speaking of the rules imposed upon women—that have no real foundation in the bible.
The Wife of Bath’s Prologue is filled with clerical texts that are derived from antifeminist, negative stereotypes of women. Many make the argument that the Wife’s use of these texts characterizes her as an embodiment of the meaning behind the words-- the stereotypes against women-- but instead, these references act as a resistance to the original meaning of the text. Referencing St Jerome, who compared woman with their virginity intact to wheat bread, women who have sex in marriage to barley bread, and fornication to cow dung, the Wife takes the original message of the text and transforms it to fit her perspective. Within the prologue, the Wife uses St Jerome's words and refers to wives, including herself, as “barly-breed” [barely bread]. This is at first presented as an agreement and surrender to St Jerome’s point, as she embodies this comparison in stating “lat us wyves hoten barely-breed” [let us wives be called barley bread] but she goes on to question the authority of St Jerome’s words as she states that “Oure Lord Jhesu refreshed many a man” [Our Jesus refreshed many a man] with barley bread (Chaucer 144, 146). In doing so, she demonstrates a resistance to the clerical text that negatively present women’s actions and instead claims the meaning of the original text to fit her own agenda.
The Wife of Bath’s use of misogynistic texts, which are often viewed as a weapon against women, are transformed and used as a tool to question the authority men claim to have in speaking of women’s rights and the feminine identity. According to Jennifer Solheim in The Performance of Listening in Postcolonial Francophone Culture, citation can be used to transform the meaning of a dominant form. For example, she refers to Judith Butler’s critique of an essay by Luce Irigaray on Plato’s Timaeus. According Solheim, Butler explains that Irigaray appropriates the form of Plato’s text in order to “demonstrate its fallacy by subverting the original text” (Solheim 93). In this context, citation can be used as a tool to embody the form of an original text and pervade it with content that undermines the original meaning. Miming, therefore, is a way to alter the meaning of the text and fill it with an alternative perception while maintaining the original form. The use of citation can be seen in the Wife of Bath’s dialogue throughout the poem.
Utilizing citations from Jerome’s, Against Jovinian, the Wife of Bath maintains the form of the dominant clerical text yet demonstrates a resistance to its meaning. Judith Butler, in Bodies That Matter, asserts that by using citation, an outside identity of femininity can be revealed. Many clerical texts attempt to describe the feminine identity and dictate the actions of women. However, those texts do not hold the truth of feminine identity, as they are written by men. Butler explains Irigaray’s point: by miming a text that claims to produce a feminine identity, such as the clerical text utilized by the Wife of Bath, the excluded sense of femininity is produced (Butler 42). In other words, by manipulating the words of text that claim to explain the truth of femininity, the excluded form of femininity is explained—the original clerical text is proven false as the truth of femininity is established. This is demonstrated in the series of citations from St Jerome used within the poem. The Wife of Bath cites claims from the text through the repetition of “Thou seist” [you say], followed by St Jerome’s characterization of women (Chaucer 282). The use of citation from Against Jovinian is prevalent throughout a large portion of the poem. Through this miming of St Jerome’s text, the Wife asserts that she represents a characterization of feminine identity that is excluded from his claims. The presentation of this excluded identity acts to challenge the assertions of feminine truth that are perpetuated by St Jerome and all other medieval clerical texts that claim authority in speaking of women.
The Wife of Bath acts as a resistance to the notion of men claiming authority to speak the truth of women, but it also challenges the reason behind the gendered stereotypes from the Middle Ages. The Wife states, that “it is an impossible That any clerk will speak good of women” [it is an impossibility that any clerk will speak good of women” and questions “Who painted the lion” (688-692 Chaucer). This declaration follows the use of repetition created by the miming of the phrase “Thou seist” (Chaucer 282). In doing so, the presentation of the excluded feminine identity is already created before the Wife makes her claim that no clerk will ever speak positive of women. Her use of citation provides proof for that claim—the citation was used throughout such a vast portion of the poem that the clerical text makes up a large section of the poem as well.
The allusion to Aesop’s fable ‘Men and Lions’ provides further context for why Medieval gender stereotypes existed. According to the fable, a man and a lion are travelling together when they come across a statue of a man dominating a lion. The man claims that men are stronger than lions, as seen in the depiction of the man throttling the lion. However, the lion states that if lions were able to create statues, the result of a fight between a man and a lion would be depicted far differently. The Wife uses this allusion to shed light on the fact that clerical texts attempting to characterize the truth of women, and do it in a very negative way, are all written by men who have the power to write the narrative. She challenges the stereotypes associated with her gender by exposing the truth behind who is responsible for them in the first place: men. This presents the question of how it is possible that medieval stereotypes of women could be true when those responsible for the stereotypes are men. The Wife claims that, if women had the power to create the narrative like how men do, they would have “written of men moore wikkednesse than al the mark of Adam may redresse” [written of men more wicked than all the male sex could set right] (Chaucer 695). This exposes the fact that what is considered true is based solely on who has the power to claim authority to describe the truth. In this context, the unfair power dynamic that places men above women allows them to choose the narrative and restrict others from claiming an alternative truth. Not only does this allusion act to challenge the legitimacy of gendered societal norms in the Middle Ages, but it also continues to question the authority that men have in characterizing women.
According to Mary Carruther, in her essay Wife of Bath and the Painting of Lions, the poem itself acts as a medium in which the marginalized party, like the lion from the fable, reclaims the power to create a narrative that tells their story. In this context, the Wife is able to demonstrate the truth of women through the use of satiric citation. Her character is “not channelled through any male; rather she forces male voices to do her bidding” (Carruther 43). This coincides with Jennifer Solheim and Judith Butler’s claims that the use of citation and miming alter the meaning of the text cited by subverting it with the intended form. Through doing this, the excluded identity of womanhood is perpetuated throughout the poem. Carruther contends that the Wife asserts a depiction of her own reality, such as the depiction of the man defeating the lion, as achieved through using “her experience as an ironic corrective both for the pronouncements of those clerics and other authorities” that are cited within the poem (Carruther 22). Through resisting the authority of men that write about women, the Wife creates an alternative narrative that sheds light on the truth of womanhood.
The Wife of Bath should not be read in such simplistic terms of the Wife being an embodiment of medieval antifeminism or its antithesis. Instead, the Wife embodies the resistance of male authority to claim to understand the truth of women. Almost the entirety of her dialogue is derived from clerical text, yet to use that as a basis claiming that she is an embodiment of misogynistic medieval stereotypes overlooks the identity that she establishes through the use of satirical citation. She manipulates the male voice to express her truth. She aptly steals the power behind the words of the clerical text and creates her own narrative. Similarly to the lion who would have depicted the power dynamic between a man and a lion far differently from the depiction the man created, the Wife creates a narrative in which the truth of women transcends the generic stereotypes promulgated by men.
The prologue begins with the Wife questioning the stigma associated with women remarrying. She begins by referencing the bible, or, rather, the bibles lack of specification on the number of husbands that a woman is allowed to have. She goes on to present the question of “Why… men'' have the authority to “thanne speke of [women remarying as]” evil when “no nombre mencion made [God]” [God made no mention of number] regarding the number of husbands a woman should have in a lifetime (Chaucer 32,34). This text presents the core of the Wife’s role: to question why men feel they have the authority to speak of what is and is not deemed fitting for women to do. The Wife continues this resistance against gendered norms and expectations of women by recounting the hypocrisy behind such an expectation that women marry only once. She alludes to Solomon, Abraham, and Jacob, describing that “ech of hem hadde wyves mo than two” [each of them had more than two wives] and questions “Wher hy God defended mariage” (Chaucer 57, 60). In providing examples of holy men who were said to have had more than one spouse, the Wife creates a division between the words of the bible and the stigmas perpetuated in the Middle Ages relating to having several spouses. This provides the first example of the Wife’s critique and questioning of male authority in speaking of the rules imposed upon women—that have no real foundation in the bible.
The Wife of Bath’s Prologue is filled with clerical texts that are derived from antifeminist, negative stereotypes of women. Many make the argument that the Wife’s use of these texts characterizes her as an embodiment of the meaning behind the words-- the stereotypes against women-- but instead, these references act as a resistance to the original meaning of the text. Referencing St Jerome, who compared woman with their virginity intact to wheat bread, women who have sex in marriage to barley bread, and fornication to cow dung, the Wife takes the original message of the text and transforms it to fit her perspective. Within the prologue, the Wife uses St Jerome's words and refers to wives, including herself, as “barly-breed” [barely bread]. This is at first presented as an agreement and surrender to St Jerome’s point, as she embodies this comparison in stating “lat us wyves hoten barely-breed” [let us wives be called barley bread] but she goes on to question the authority of St Jerome’s words as she states that “Oure Lord Jhesu refreshed many a man” [Our Jesus refreshed many a man] with barley bread (Chaucer 144, 146). In doing so, she demonstrates a resistance to the clerical text that negatively present women’s actions and instead claims the meaning of the original text to fit her own agenda.
The Wife of Bath’s use of misogynistic texts, which are often viewed as a weapon against women, are transformed and used as a tool to question the authority men claim to have in speaking of women’s rights and the feminine identity. According to Jennifer Solheim in The Performance of Listening in Postcolonial Francophone Culture, citation can be used to transform the meaning of a dominant form. For example, she refers to Judith Butler’s critique of an essay by Luce Irigaray on Plato’s Timaeus. According Solheim, Butler explains that Irigaray appropriates the form of Plato’s text in order to “demonstrate its fallacy by subverting the original text” (Solheim 93). In this context, citation can be used as a tool to embody the form of an original text and pervade it with content that undermines the original meaning. Miming, therefore, is a way to alter the meaning of the text and fill it with an alternative perception while maintaining the original form. The use of citation can be seen in the Wife of Bath’s dialogue throughout the poem.
Utilizing citations from Jerome’s, Against Jovinian, the Wife of Bath maintains the form of the dominant clerical text yet demonstrates a resistance to its meaning. Judith Butler, in Bodies That Matter, asserts that by using citation, an outside identity of femininity can be revealed. Many clerical texts attempt to describe the feminine identity and dictate the actions of women. However, those texts do not hold the truth of feminine identity, as they are written by men. Butler explains Irigaray’s point: by miming a text that claims to produce a feminine identity, such as the clerical text utilized by the Wife of Bath, the excluded sense of femininity is produced (Butler 42). In other words, by manipulating the words of text that claim to explain the truth of femininity, the excluded form of femininity is explained—the original clerical text is proven false as the truth of femininity is established. This is demonstrated in the series of citations from St Jerome used within the poem. The Wife of Bath cites claims from the text through the repetition of “Thou seist” [you say], followed by St Jerome’s characterization of women (Chaucer 282). The use of citation from Against Jovinian is prevalent throughout a large portion of the poem. Through this miming of St Jerome’s text, the Wife asserts that she represents a characterization of feminine identity that is excluded from his claims. The presentation of this excluded identity acts to challenge the assertions of feminine truth that are perpetuated by St Jerome and all other medieval clerical texts that claim authority in speaking of women.
The Wife of Bath acts as a resistance to the notion of men claiming authority to speak the truth of women, but it also challenges the reason behind the gendered stereotypes from the Middle Ages. The Wife states, that “it is an impossible That any clerk will speak good of women” [it is an impossibility that any clerk will speak good of women” and questions “Who painted the lion” (688-692 Chaucer). This declaration follows the use of repetition created by the miming of the phrase “Thou seist” (Chaucer 282). In doing so, the presentation of the excluded feminine identity is already created before the Wife makes her claim that no clerk will ever speak positive of women. Her use of citation provides proof for that claim—the citation was used throughout such a vast portion of the poem that the clerical text makes up a large section of the poem as well.
The allusion to Aesop’s fable ‘Men and Lions’ provides further context for why Medieval gender stereotypes existed. According to the fable, a man and a lion are travelling together when they come across a statue of a man dominating a lion. The man claims that men are stronger than lions, as seen in the depiction of the man throttling the lion. However, the lion states that if lions were able to create statues, the result of a fight between a man and a lion would be depicted far differently. The Wife uses this allusion to shed light on the fact that clerical texts attempting to characterize the truth of women, and do it in a very negative way, are all written by men who have the power to write the narrative. She challenges the stereotypes associated with her gender by exposing the truth behind who is responsible for them in the first place: men. This presents the question of how it is possible that medieval stereotypes of women could be true when those responsible for the stereotypes are men. The Wife claims that, if women had the power to create the narrative like how men do, they would have “written of men moore wikkednesse than al the mark of Adam may redresse” [written of men more wicked than all the male sex could set right] (Chaucer 695). This exposes the fact that what is considered true is based solely on who has the power to claim authority to describe the truth. In this context, the unfair power dynamic that places men above women allows them to choose the narrative and restrict others from claiming an alternative truth. Not only does this allusion act to challenge the legitimacy of gendered societal norms in the Middle Ages, but it also continues to question the authority that men have in characterizing women.
According to Mary Carruther, in her essay Wife of Bath and the Painting of Lions, the poem itself acts as a medium in which the marginalized party, like the lion from the fable, reclaims the power to create a narrative that tells their story. In this context, the Wife is able to demonstrate the truth of women through the use of satiric citation. Her character is “not channelled through any male; rather she forces male voices to do her bidding” (Carruther 43). This coincides with Jennifer Solheim and Judith Butler’s claims that the use of citation and miming alter the meaning of the text cited by subverting it with the intended form. Through doing this, the excluded identity of womanhood is perpetuated throughout the poem. Carruther contends that the Wife asserts a depiction of her own reality, such as the depiction of the man defeating the lion, as achieved through using “her experience as an ironic corrective both for the pronouncements of those clerics and other authorities” that are cited within the poem (Carruther 22). Through resisting the authority of men that write about women, the Wife creates an alternative narrative that sheds light on the truth of womanhood.
The Wife of Bath should not be read in such simplistic terms of the Wife being an embodiment of medieval antifeminism or its antithesis. Instead, the Wife embodies the resistance of male authority to claim to understand the truth of women. Almost the entirety of her dialogue is derived from clerical text, yet to use that as a basis claiming that she is an embodiment of misogynistic medieval stereotypes overlooks the identity that she establishes through the use of satirical citation. She manipulates the male voice to express her truth. She aptly steals the power behind the words of the clerical text and creates her own narrative. Similarly to the lion who would have depicted the power dynamic between a man and a lion far differently from the depiction the man created, the Wife creates a narrative in which the truth of women transcends the generic stereotypes promulgated by men.
Works Cited
Butler, Judith. Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex.” Routledge, 1993, pp. 35 –49.
Carruthers, Mary. “The Wife of Bath and the Painting of Lions” Feminist Reading in Middle English Literature: The Wife of Bath and All Her Sect, edited by Ruth Evans and Lesley Johnson, 1994, pp. 22-53.
Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Wife of Bath’s Prologue.
Irigaray, Luce. “Plato’s Hystera.” Speculum of the Other Woman, translated by Gillian C. Gill. Cornell University Press, 1985, pp. 243-364.
Solheim, Jennifer, The Performance of Listening in Postcolonial Francophone Culture. Liverpool University Press, 2017, p. 93.
Butler, Judith. Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex.” Routledge, 1993, pp. 35 –49.
Carruthers, Mary. “The Wife of Bath and the Painting of Lions” Feminist Reading in Middle English Literature: The Wife of Bath and All Her Sect, edited by Ruth Evans and Lesley Johnson, 1994, pp. 22-53.
Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Wife of Bath’s Prologue.
Irigaray, Luce. “Plato’s Hystera.” Speculum of the Other Woman, translated by Gillian C. Gill. Cornell University Press, 1985, pp. 243-364.
Solheim, Jennifer, The Performance of Listening in Postcolonial Francophone Culture. Liverpool University Press, 2017, p. 93.