Chaucer's Wife of Bath
Elaine Tuttle Hansen: Feminist & Anti-Feminist Views
Elaine Tuttle Hansen’s essay entitled “Of his love daungerous to me: Liberation, Subversion, and Domestic Violence in the Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale’, she discusses the feminist and antifeminist attitudes found in the Wife of Bath. She questions whether Chaucer intended the Wife to be looked at as a “monster or joke” (Hansen 273) or if he seeks the reader to find an understanding in her anti-marriage and antifeminist rhetoric.
Feminism
Hansen first examines the wife as a feminist in Part I of her essay. She looks at the “strong, active, outspoken women” as demonstrating “authentic female speech” who might possibly be a “direct spokeswoman for the perceptive proto-feminism of Chaucer” (Hansen 273). Hansen is correct in labeling some of the wife’s traits; many of her qualities are those believed to be characteristic of men: she thinks on her own, she is often scientific in her reasoning, and she is not generous.
In the General Prologue we learn of her deafness: “she was somdel deef” (ln. 446). This handicap has been metaphorically delivered by the “antifeminist doctrine” her husband read; it is a sign of her fight for equality. However, on closer inspection, it would seem that the Prologue could contain an anti-feminist message, under the facade of a seemingly feminist exterior.
Anti-Feminism
Hansen does not miss the point that many of the Wife of Bath’s beliefs are also anti-feminist. It is clearly possible that the wife is “a victim of the antifeminism so rampant in her day” (Hansen 274). Alisoun states in lines 441-442 that “sith a man is moore reasonable/ than woman is, ye moste been suffrable.” With this statement, she is going along with the misogynistic view that women are emotional while men are rational.
In many cases, her character epitomizes the misogynous description of women. For example, she is a self-described “gold-digger,” which supports the antifeminist theory that women are selfish and materialistic. The Wife’s appreciation of her many marriages is based on greediness and materialism, as she supports in this statement:
“Blessed be God that I have wedded five,
Of whiche I have picked out the beste,
Both of hir nether purs and of hir cheste”
(ln. 44-45).
She wanted these men neither for their love nor for their companionship; she was only interested in their money. She furthers explains this in the following statement, later in her prologue:
“But sithe I hadde hem hoolly in myn hand,
And sith that they hadde yiven me al hir land,
What sholde I take keep hem for to plese,
But it were for my profit and myn ese”
(ln. 211-214)?
The Wife sees no reason to please her husbands unless, in doing so, she receives profit or goods from the act.
Elaine Tuttle Hansen’s criticism is well composed with little or no holes. She does a wonderful job of summing up the character of the Wife in two sentences “she attacks, impersonates, and parodies the words and voices that seek to control her. So exaggerated are her citations of antifeminist rhetoric that we see how silly it is” (Hansen 274).
Chaucer’s frequent discrediting of the Wife’s arguments makes her unfounded and generally compromises her character. This brings into question Chaucer’s political intent with the Wife of Bath. Is he supportive of her views, or is he making a mockery of woman who challenge the patriarchal society and its restriction and mistrust of women?
Hansen, Elaine Tuttle. 1996. “Of His Love Daungerous To Me: Liberation, Subversion, and Domestic Violence in the Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale.” The Wife of Bath. Ed. Peter G. Beidler. New York: St Martin’s Press, 273-89.
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