The real first thing we hear from this woman is "I'm the authority on marriages, I've had enough of em." That's not a direct quote. Then, tailing off that, we hear that she's had 5 husbands! But don't accuse her of bigamy, because they're sequential, not at the same time. Oh, and she's cool with a sixth "whan that evere he shall!" (45, 103).
Also, don't ask about her virginity because she's tired of hearing it. To paraphrase, so many people think virginity is more important than marriage, but she calls it "frailty" if people want to be abstinent their whole lives, and you won't make her jealous. In the same section of the book, we get a lot of innuendos talking about how men and women have different parts and "how can a man make his payment if he's never used his instrument"(p. 104-105). Basically, she likes marriage and virginity ain't all that.
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| this is the wife of bath @ the haters |
We also hear from her that she won't follow a rubric, she follows her own path which is cool to hear from a woman back then, regardless of why she's saying it.
Alisoun (I think I read that's her name) gives us a quick rundown of her husbands, and from what I gather they're all old and wealthy and not worth her time. But the fifth husband is actually rad. He was so fresh and gay in bed (507, 113) (her words not mine). Someone who had my book before me annotated next to lines 503-514 when she's talking about husband #5, "it hurts so good" which I thought was hilarious and actually a great way to sum up that passage.
I really appreciated her straightforwardness, and how she was a powerful woman. She had a lot of husbands, she enjoyed the perks of being married (even if it's to a man 20 years her junior) and she wasn't shy about doing things her own way. I can dig that.
Before discussing the prologue in class, I wasn't quite sure what to think. To be honest, I'm still not 100% about my feelings on The Wife of Bath. Part of me wants to say "you go girl" and the other part of me wants to say "uhhh that's a lot of husbands...." I guess it's all a matter of how I look at it (and maybe how I'm feeling that particular day). However, I will say that I enjoy her confidence and her way of describing her sexual relations.
ReplyDeleteThe Wife of Bath is certainly a character that I'm a little iffy about myself. I mean, I'm all about doing whatever you want and setting goals for yourself, but like, using your sexuality to control your husband and get what you want is a little too excessive for me. She's definitely an interesting individual, and knows what she wants, which is cool, but I'm not too sure about the whole thing. Like I'd like to think that some people married for love in this time period, and I totally could be wrong, but I feel like she'd have been a much happier chick if that's what she had done. Her fifth husband seemed to be a real winner until he kicked the bucket, but c'est la vie, right?
ReplyDeletePersonally, I like how the Wife of Bath kind just does her own thing. She wants to be good in God's book, but she also wants to enjoy herself ;) if you know what I mean... and even if she did have 4 husbands before she found real love, she was still loyal to her husbands (as long as they were alive at least)
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