Within womanhood, there are various states of life that a woman can achieve. Wifehood is one, probably the most common amongst them, while women who are never married fall into one of two other categories: either secular old-maidenhood, or the religious life one leads as a nun. In the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer the pilgrim-narrator only provides us with one wife and two nuns, but using the metanarrative of the Tales his fellow pilgrims tell, he ends up granting us a great variety of characters within which we see a much broader selection. The multiplicity and disparity of these characters allows us a panoramic view of femininity and especially wifehood. Inside the scope of the Canterbury Tales, I wish to examine what Chaucer thinks it means to be a good wife, and to see in what ways (besides the obvious) being a wife overlaps with what it means to be a woman in general.
Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales offers no explicit definition of wifehood, nor a proclamation of its ideal form. However, it provides us with many varied examples of wives, from the wife of Bath -- the only married woman travelling on the pilgrimage and telling a tale herself -- to the various wives that appear in the tales which the pilgrims tell in their contest to entertain themselves. This latter category contains a plethora of women who enter their marriages with very disparate mindsets about what their roles might be as a wife. These mindsets primarily concern where the ruling power of the marriage will lie. Some wives want it for themselves, others are willing to gift it entirely to their husbands, and a third category in some way decide to share it between themselves and their husbands.
Chaucer’s portrayal of humanity rarely describes fully perfect ideals. His companions on the pilgrimage to Canterbury, with the exception of the “verray, parfit gentil knyght” (pg 3; ln 72) are realistic individuals with character flaws such as the avarice of the Summoner, the Pardoner’s fraudulence, a lack of appropriate devotion to his order’s mandated lifestyle which we see in the Monk, all the way up to the Skipper’s murderousness. Even of the Doctor, the “parfit praktisour” (pg 13; ln 422), it is implied that his prescriptions may be written more for the benefit of his and his friends’ purses than for that of his patients, which is hardly ideal. There are also lesser imperfections among the group, moral and physical: the Wife of Bath’s gap-toothedness, the Clerk’s propensity for borrowing money he can’t repay, the ulcer on the knee of the Cook, the pimply complexion of the Summoner, and the perhaps oversensitivity of the Prioress.
Within the tales these individuals relate, we more often hear claims of perfection and ideal characteristics, particularly in female characters. Descriptions of physical beauty and moral virtue are particularly likely to be hyperbolized. Yet female characters are also more likely to be vilified for their flaws when they occur. Those who are not legendarily virtuous are rarely described merely as women with flaws who are trying their best; they are unfaithful strumpets. Those who are not legendarily beautiful are called hags or crones, not simply plain or homely.
In this paper, I am going to begin by examining examples of the different mindsets a woman can have about what her role as a wife is to be. Then I am going to see how a woman’s state of wifehood is inextricably linked with her having a husband, and that their relationship is critically involved in what it means for her to be a wife. The third section of my paper will examine the husband’s outlook on wifehood and what it means to him to have a wife. By the time I have explored these facets of wifehood, it is my hope that I will have shown what Chaucer would consider to be the marking of a good wife.
Griselda, wife to the Marquis from the Clerk’s Tale, agrees without hesitation to her husband’s preliminary requirement that she
Be ye redy with good herte
To al my lust, and that I frely may,
As me best thynketh, do yow laughe or smerte,
And nevere ye to grucche it, nyght ne day?
And eek whan I sey “ye” ne sey nat “nay,”
Neither by word ne frownyng contenance?
(pg 231; ln 351-56)
Her submission to her husband’s will is a characteristic often touted as a virtue for wives. There are, for example, a number of Biblical exhortations to it, in both the Old and New Testaments. Nevertheless, when her husband decides to test her devotedness to this arrangement, we the readers cringe at just how ultimate her devotion is, how readily she consents to sacrifice her children’s lives to his announced whim. Modern sensibilities even cry abuse simply at the thought that he could consider it reasonable to ask for her unquestioning obedience in the first place. We will later be able to see that this is not the case, that her willingness to serve her husband is itself a kind of self-mastery.
To allay such concerns for the moment, though, we can recall that the clerk himself informs us at the end of his Tale that
This storie is seyd, nat for that wyves sholde
Folwen Grisilde as in humylitee,
For it were inportable, though they wolde;
But for that every wight, in his degree,
Sholde be constant in adversitee
As was Grisilde; therfore Petrak writeth
This storie, which with heigh stile he enditeth.
For, sith a womman with so pacient
Unto a mortal man, wel moore us oght
Receyven al in gree that God us sent;
For greet skile is, he preeve what he wroghte.
(pg 254; ln 1142-52)
Is the relationship between husbands and wives uniquely adapted to Christian allegory because it is, in some way, supposed to be structured this way, though? The Clerk used a married couple as his metaphor for humanity’s ideal submission to God’s will in tribulations throughout life, and it remains a recognizable example of a marital relationship -- hyperbolized, perhaps a bit extreme, but still clearly a husband and wife dynamic. Although the themes of dominance and submission are critically involved, he did not need to choose a relationship between a master and slave to prove his point. In fact, to do so might have been detrimental. The conception that the deference that is owed to God is owed Him for love and gratitude, rather than because we are to be as slaves to Him, was one that was common throughout Christendom in Chaucer’s day. His characters are Biblically literate, as we see from numerous Tales that reference various stories and other passages from both the Old and the New Testaments. Several of the pilgrims are even members of various religious orders. It is therefore reasonable to assume they would be familiar with this distinction and recognize that not all subservience is to be conflated with unwilling slavery.
A real marriage would never be a perfect example of the Godly relationship the Clerk is describing, because a real marriage is between two real, imperfect people, unlike his conception of the Godly relationship that involves Christianity’s perfect God. But the Clerk’s tale is already outside the necessity of such considerations. It is a fable, and the Clerk reminds us that the characters are unlike the people among whom the reader often finds himself. Even if wives were supposed to try to emulate Griselda exactly, “It were ful hard to fynde now-a-dayes/In al a toun Grisildis thre or two” (pg 254; ln 1164-65).
Does the fact that real women are not perfect mean they shouldn’t try to be perfect? If so, what’s the point of this story -- or any tale with a moral -- at all? The Clerk claims his Tale showcases the necessity of “every wight”, man or woman, to “be constant in adversitee” that God sends. One is no more likely to find a person capable of perfect devotion to God than he is to find a woman who can perfectly emulate Grisilda in wifehood. Insofar as we humans are capable of striving for perfect devotion to God, though, if not accomplishing it, oughtn’t a woman perhaps also strive for perfect devotion to her husband? I consider this likely, especially since, as discussed above, the paradigmatic model of the marital dynamic must be similar to the paradigm for the dynamic one has with God for the analogy to work. It is possible that in the case of real humans, “perfect devotion” and “total devotion” may not be the same thing. And yet, that devotion, whether perfect or not, is seen as desirable by some. Else why would anybody even make the attempt “to fynde...Grisildis” (pg 254; ln 1164-65)?
Chaucer as our narrator seems to have a slightly different approach to the final message of this tale. In his Envoy to the Clerk’s Tale, he both urges that “No wedded man so hardy be t’assaille/His wyves pacience in trust to fynde/Grisildis, for in certein he shal faille” (pg 255; ln 1180-82) and suggests that wives do their best not to be like Griselda, but rather
Lat noon humylitee youre tonge naille,
Ne lat no clerk have cause or diligence
To write of yow a storie of swich mervaille
As of Grisildis pacient and kynde,
Lest Chichevache yow swelwe in hire entraille!
(pg 255; ln 1184-88)
Is this simply because, as the Clerk says, any one member of the vast majority of women is mostly doomed to failure if she tries to emulate Griselda anyway? Certainly to strive for such an unreachable goal can be discouraging. When inevitable failure takes over, one no longer feels capable enough to make the attempt worth the effort. If we are to consider the alternative -- that there is something inherently awful about being a patient, kind, obedient wife -- though, we must attempt to discover what that something may be and who it is that considers being a good wife so terrible.
What the something that makes it so awful to be a good wife would be is difficult to discern. The concept of giving up one’s own will to another person is one that can cause discomfort, but that does not make it an inherent negative. After all, that is exactly what is being suggested by allegory. Subverting one’s own will to God’s, though frightening, is believed throughout Chaucer’s Christendom to be worth it for the rewards offered in Heaven, akin to the “happily ever after” life that Griselda is rewarded with by remaining faithful through the trials her husband mandates. In a literal reading of the Clerk’s tale, though, where a wife is thought truly to be supposed to obey all her husband’s instructions unquestioningly, we can no longer guarantee that the one to whom she is devoted is giving her instructions that are appropriate. In the Reeve’s tale, the wife of the miller Simpkin was used as an instrument of her husband’s punishment. She acted as an accomplice in her husband’s cheating and stealing from his clients, but that itself could be taken as a sign of her full devotion to him. Devotion of that sort, to someone whose will is not aligned with goodness, can be seen as evidence of a misalignment in one’s own will that was present to begin with.
The difficulty described above is one that would be relevant to the wives’ own perceptions of their lot in life more than it would occur to an outsider. It is therefore not unreasonable to assume that the conception of being a devoted wife as a negative state of affairs originated with the wives themselves. Yet I feel as though the wives ought not need to exhort each other to keep away from being “too good”, if this were the case. The discomfort of submitting to another’s will ought to be sufficient discouragement for women to avoid being obedient wives, if that is something they ought to avoid. Is it possible that men are the ones trying to dissuade their wives from being deferent, then? Why would they do that? Throughout The Canterbury Tales, both the men on the pilgrimage to Canterbury and the men in the Tales that are told by the pilgrims consider being married to a nagging woman unpleasant and to an unfaithful woman to be an intense disgrace. Rivalries even arise between the pilgrims when one tells a story which even very vaguely implies that another might have a wife who is not fully devoted to him. Characters in the Tales frequently select spouses based -- in addition to the candidates’ physical attractiveness -- on some nebulous concept of “virtue”, which seems most frequently to refer to an ability to remain fully devoted only to their spouse.
It is important to note that Griselda eventually does get what amounts to an idyllic “happily ever after”. Her husband may have put her through many trials and tribulations, but in the end, she was reunited with her children, her father was allowed to live in palatial comfort with them until he died, and she was returned to her station as marchioness. Her husband effectively said she had passed the test, and now that he can be sure she is perfectly dedicated to keeping her word and honouring the promise she made before their wedding, they may live together forever in peace and joy. Is there anything so awful about that? He did not commit the blunder that men who wish to test their wives usually seem to fall into. Instead of seeing how strong her devotion was by testing it until it did break, he tested it a certain amount, but no more, and then considered her testing over and successful.Perhaps we might wish that such tests were unnecessary, that the virtue he saw in her from the beginning would be sufficient for him. Yet it seems a recurring theme in human belief, the idea that untested virtue cannot be trusted.
After talking about the lovely Griselda, I feel it is important to discuss the directly opposed mindset a woman can have on entering a state of wifehood, which is most emphatically present in the tale told by the Wife of Bath. The reader of the wife of Bath’s tale is meant to conclude that a man will only achieve happiness in his marriage by handing mastery over to his wife, and that the women themselves universally desire this arrangement above all else. As I, a woman, do not have any such desire, I can declare that this is not always the case, but let us not take this personal, anecdotal evidence as sufficient. The issue is more nuanced than it sounds at first, for once the husband in the tale decided to give mastery over to his wife, she exercised it by choosing to be good and faithful, “trewe”, and “humble”, that is, not terribly masterful after all. This brings into question what is really meant when the knight, on the suggestion of the Faerie Queen, claims that “Wommen desiren to have sovereynetee/As wel over hir housbond as hir love,/And for to been in maistrie hym above” (pg 185; ln 1038-40). Given that the way she used her mastery was to give it up, we can now attempt to figure out whether what she really wanted was in line with her statement about the desires of women in general.
The crime the knight committed in the first place is the ultimate revocation of a woman’s mastery, even over her very self. His sentence is prevented from being carried out by “the queene and othere ladyes mo” who “So long preyden the king of grace” that “he his lyf graunted in the place/And yaf hym to the queene, al at hir wille,/To chese wheither she wolde hym save or spille.” (pg 181-82; ln 894-898) What the queen’s motive was in stopping his execution in the first place, I am not sure, for I think discerning that would depend on first figuring out whether she all along knew the “correct” answer to her question. Regardless of her original intent, though, the challenge she sets the knight has the effect that he is forced first to learn, then to implement the following lesson: women exist for more than for him to lord over, to subdue by mere force, and to use for his own pleasures. In fact, his lesson is not only to avoid taking away their existent mastery (over themselves, if nothing else), but in certain cases -- when married to them, explicitly -- to give them the privilege of being his master.
The reason that it is so difficult to know what the queen’s motive for saving the knight’s life is rests in whether she knows what the answer to her question is when she asks it. If she did, then it is reasonable to assume she was hoping he would find the answer, learn it, and rehabilitate himself according to its precepts. The reasons I suspect she may not, however, are twofold. First is the wide variety of answers the knight is given by the women he polls during his travels during the year after his trial. If there were only one right answer that the queen knew he was seeking, wouldn’t more women know it? True, as individuals we have different desires, but the whole point of the question asked is that there is supposed to be one answer, which is universally applicable to the desires of all of us. Why would the queen know it better than any other woman? She may hold a high position in the nation, but there is nothing to make her arbiter of womanhood, and she knows it, else she would have sat in final judgement alone, rather than accompanied by a gathered assembly of “Ful many a noble wyf, and many a mayde,/And many a wydwe” (ph 185; ln 1026-27). My other reason for suspecting that the queen is not preliminarily sure of the answer is in the reaction these ladies of the court have when the knight returns to offer his answer after the allotted time. They do not say he has found the answer they were hoping for, but rather that “In al the court ne was ther wyf, ne mayde,/Ne wydwe, that contraried that he sayd” (pg 185; ln 1043-44). That’s it. In a way, he wasn’t right; he simply wasn’t wrong.
The plethora of women the knight meets in the course of the year before he must give his answer cannot agree with each other on one, single thing that all women primarily desire.
Somme seyde wommen loven best richesse,
Somme seyde honour, somme seyd jolynesse,
Somme riche array, somme seyden lust abedde,
And oftetyme to be wydwe and wedde.
Somme seyde that oure hertes been moost esed
Whan that we been yflatered and yplesed.
...And somme seyen that we loven best
For to be free, and do right as us lest,
And that no man repreve us of oure vice,
But seye that we be wise, and no thyng nyce.
...And somme seyn that greet delit han we
For to been holden stable, and eek secree,
And in o purpos stedefastly to dwelle,
And nat biwreye thynge that men us telle.
(pg 182-83; ln 925-48)
This poll, and the inclusion of the list of answers given to the knight, returns a voice to women, one that the knight had taken away when he originally raped the girl by the river. The difficulty of finding a single comprehensive answer to the queen’s question highlights that women are more than mute objects for man’s use and pleasure. They have individual desires, because they are individual persons. Since the knight had refused to hear the desires of the girl, and used her for his own pleasure instead, now he must hear the wishes of a plethora of other women. This is a first step in his lesson. He still does not know the answer, and he certainly does not yet put it into practice -- how could he, not knowing what it is? -- but he is forced to open his ears to women if he is to have even the possibility of preventing his execution.
Once the old woman bestows on the knight the knowledge of the true answer to which all women can apparently agree, he is able to go back to court and regurgitate the old woman’s answer to the queen and the ladies sitting in judgement. Although this is sufficient to save his life, we can almost immediately see by his attempted refusal to fulfill his promise to his saviour that he has not yet truly integrated the meaning of the statement into his life. To the knight, the fact that women desire sovereignty is still no more than words. He has memorized the lesson, but has not yet learned it. He may have a small inkling of its import, though. Aside from the physical disgust he has at the thought of being married to an old woman, his reluctance to fulfill her request may stem from his already fearing having to give the kind of mastery to his wife that he just said all women desire to have over their husbands.
He is not wholly wrong on this count. Though he managed to stay his execution by reciting the lesson, his true final test swiftly arrives. Consider the ultimatum the old woman gives the knight on their wedding night:
“Chese now,” quod she, “oon of thise thynges tweye:
To han me foul and old til that I deye,
And be to yow a trewe, humble wyf,
And nevere yow displese in al my lyf;
Or elles ye wol han me yong and fair,
And take youre aventure of the repair
That shal be to youre hous by cause of me,
Or in som oother place, may wel be.
(pg 190; ln 1219-26)
The alternatives offered are of two different, very less-than-ideal wifely archetypes. The fact that this decision is difficult is more evidence for what was said earlier, that men are likely not the ones attempting to dissuade wives from being obedient and deferent, else it would have been a very easy choice to have her physically attractive and not care about her level of singular devotion. The wife she ends up being for him, once she is allowed to make that decision on her own, is yet a third sort, the best of both worlds for him, essentially the perfectly idealized wife.
The knight has finally fully implemented his lesson. He has given his wife the opportunity to choose essentially which of two paths their entire domestic life will take. Giving her the power to decide with which he would look at her -- repulsion or suspicion -- for the rest of her life proves that he has fully comprehended the words he once only recited to the queen. The rehabilitated womanizer is rewarded, and his wife gives him that third ideal option. She rewards him with the promise that
I wol be to yow bothe,
This is to seyn, bothe fair and good.
I prey to God that I moote sterven wood,
But I to yow be also good and trewe
As evere was wyf, syn that the world was newe.
And but I be to-morn as fair to seene
As any lady, emperice, or queene,
That is bitwixe the est and eke the west,
Dooth with my lyf and deth right as yow lest.
(pg 190-91; ln 1240-48)
That is, once mastery is given over to her, she gives it right back. Despite claiming that all she wants -- by extension of her both claiming it is what all women want and being a woman -- is sovereignty over her husband, this woman returns the control to her husband once she gets it, granting him power even to decide whether she lives and choosing to be obedient to him as long as they both do so.
Is her approach to wifehood all that different from Griselda’s? Based only on the beginning of each tale, the answer is a resoundingly obvious “yes”. Yet if we take a closer look at the exact dynamic of each relationship, the issue becomes clouded. Griselda’s husband agrees to marry her provided she swears obedience to him in all things. She agrees, and lives according to that promise, no matter how difficult he makes it for her. The knight’s wife is originally under no such restrictions; even that their wedding took place was an edict of hers, not his. Yet when she is given the role of being in command of their relationship, she uses that power to become a wife in the style of her husband’s desires, including obedience to him. Both women truly did have a choice in the matter. Griselda was not miserable in her unmarried life as a peasant girl, and if obedience was too much for him to ask, she could have turned down the Marquis’ marriage proposal. The old woman, as we see, is in a kind of control from the beginning, as the knight owes her his life, and she gains yet another level of control when he makes it her decision what kind of wife to be. The woman who is obviously subservient and the one who begins her marriage in the position of power both exercise their own wills to give mastery of themselves to their husbands. Their wills are not taken away; rather, both women actively decide to align their own wills with those of their husbands. Even the language we have used so far for this exchange, the talk of “giving mastery”, reinforces this concept. The women cannot give what they do not have. Conversely, the men are both athletes and warriors, and they no doubt have the physical capability to extract obedience from their wives, yet neither makes use of this. Griselda’s husband does not need to, of course, because she is unfailingly obedient to his wishes from the beginning. The knight in the Wife of Bath’s Tale originally places himself in a position where he has relinquished power to his wife, but because of his willingness to do so, she chooses to be obedient as Griselda was, and by that action renders it equally unnecessary that he use physical strength to assert his dominance.
At this juncture, it is important to point out that from a simply lexical standpoint, we have used the phrase “good wife” a number of times already, to refer to just such a wife as these two women, one who is devoted to her husband and obedient to him. In fact, the Wife of Bath did the same, for all her claim that women want mastery. Her character, the old woman whose entire story is devoted to making that point, also says to the knight that she will be “bothe fair and good” (pg 190; ln 1241) and “also good and trewe” (pg 190; ln 1243), then “She obeyed hym in every thyng/That myghte doon hym plesance or likyng” (pg 191; ln 1255-56). Somehow, despite claiming to desire the exact opposite, even the Wife of Bath acknowledges that devotion and obedience are fundamentally characteristics of the good wife.
Even if it could turn out that the two approaches I have explored so far are fundamentally different -- though I hope I have been convincing in my expression of the view that this is not so -- perhaps there’s a middle ground. Maybe wives can be neither completely subservient to nor completely masters of their husbands. The Franklin’s tale touches on this theme. The arguments that Prudence makes in the Tale of Melibee also show that the relationship between a husband and wife can be one of partnership and even equality. Almost immediately following the attack on their daughter, Prudence counsels her husband to gather his friends to advise him on an appropriate course of action. Because he agrees with her counsel, he follows it without questioning it. When the advice these friends give turns bad, however, Prudence steps in again, and again counsels her husband on a course of action. Because her advice is no longer in perfect alignment with his already-formed desires, Melibee rebels, claiming that he cannot follow her words for a number of reasons. His third protestation is that “if I governed me by thy conseil, it sholde seme that I hadde yeve to thee over me the maistrie; and God forbede that it so weere” (pg 396; ln 1194-96). Though he backs up this argument with a quote from Jesus of Sirach claiming that the wife goes against God if she has mastery, Dame Prudence’s objection only addresses the accusation that to follow advice indicates one has given mastery to the adviser. That is all it must do, for once she shows that is not so, she has also proven not to have taken mastery over Melibee when she offers him counsel. As Prudence points out, however, “thilke man that asketh conseil of a purpos, yet hath he free choys wheither he wole werke by that conseil or noon” (pg 398; ln 1264-66). Here, without making it a question of mastery at all, we see that the husband and wife are able to work together, providing good advice to each other without needing to feel mastered or controlled. Similar to the knight in the Wife of Bath’s Tale, Melibee, having been convinced that his wife is giving him sound advice for his own benefit, agrees that he “wol governe me by thy conseil in alle thyng” (pg 399; ln 1333). The Tale continues for quite some time, with Prudence providing her husband with wise words about what kind of person makes a good adviser, and how to deal with those on whom one wishes to take revenge. Melibee’s willingness to take her advice at this point is not a pure handing over of full sovereignty in their relationship. It is a cooperative attempt to determine the best course of action for a whole family, as decided on my both parties in the marriage.
Considering the wife as a partner of her husband emphasizes the fact that between husband and wife there exists a relationship. Each is crucial to the existence of the other, not because they as individual humans cannot survive without each other, but because of the use of the titles “husband” and “wife”. There simply is no wife without her husband. The closest thing, a wife who has lost her husband, we call a widow. We tend to think of widowhood and wifehood as two very different states of life for a woman. But the point is that the word wife refers to a married woman. Women marry men. Those men are their husbands. Wives simply are not wives if they do not have husbands. And sometimes, one woman who has married multiple times in succession can be a different wife to different husbands. The wife of Bath, Alison, uses her prologue as an opportunity to relate the differences between all her husbands, and her own mindset being married to each of them. The first three were “goode men, and riche, and olde” (pg 163; ln 197). The latter two traits combine to make the Wife of Bath consider those husbands good. Their advanced age means they die soon after the wedding, allowing her the opportunity to marry again and again, which she considers a benefit in and of itself.
Yblessed be God that I have wedded fyve!
Welcome the sixte, whan that evere he shal.
For sothe, I wol nat kepe me chaast in al.
Whan my housbonde is fro the world ygon,
Som Cristen man shal wedde me anon,
(pg 159; ln 44-48)
In addition, their wealth allows her to live for the time she is with them in some manner of luxury and comfort. The Wife’s preferred method of being with these men, though, is to control them with words, to “chide hem spitously” (pg 164; ln 223) so that they “were ful glad whan I spak to hem faire” (pg 164; ln 222). Even a small reprieve from her scolding was worth pursuit, since it came so rarely. The Wife spends 144 lines (pgs 164-168; ln 235-379) simply recounting the harsh words with which she tormented her first three husbands into doing all her bidding. In their sex lives as well, she figures that
...sith I hadde hem hoolly in myn hond,
And sith they hadde me yeven al hir lond,
What sholde I taken keep hem for to plese,
But it were for my profit and myn ese?
I sette hem so a-werke, by my fey,
That many a nyght they songen “weilawey!”
(pg 163; ln 211-216)
which is an odd way to look at the give and take of marriage. It is more extreme even than the claim made in her Tale, that women want as much mastery over their husbands as over their lovers (pg 185; ln 1038-39). Here, Dame Alice tells us that she gave her husbands less than she would another lover, since the husband was already bound to her, essentially with no escape, while a lover must be continually wooed, lest he simply leave her for being not worth the trouble.
The Wife of Bath’s method of tormenting her fourth husband was not so focused on mere words and chiding. She “hadde in herte greet despit/That he of any oother had delit” (pg 171; ln 481-82), and decided to pay him back in kind. Though she claims this was done “Nat of my body, in no foul manere” (pg 171; ln 485), she also recalls that in those days, she “had dronke a draughte of sweete wyn”, after which “on Venus moste I thynke” (pg 170; ln 459, 464). Since “A likerous mouth moste han a likerous tayl,” and “In wommen vinolent is no defence” (pg 170; ln 466-67), I am not entirely sure she is to be trusted in her claim not to have riled her husband’s jealousy by herself taking a paramour, but even if she did not, she “made folk swich cheere/That in his owene grece I made hym frye/For angre, and for verray jalousie” (pg 171; ln 486-88). It is unclear whether his jealousy actually convinces him to give mastery of his goods or self to his Wife, the way her first three husbands did, or whether he was merely tormented -- Alice “was his purgatorie” (pg 171; ln 489) -- until he died.
The relationship the Wife of Bath had with her fifth husband, however, is probably the most interesting, and also the most dynamic. Although he was violent to her, and told her off for the sins of all womankind as much as she had ever scolded her first three husbands, still she loved him best out of the five. In a way, her relationship with this clerk is a direct inversion of her first three marriages. Where in the early days, she made her husbands crave a kind word by giving them overmuch of cruelty, her fifth husband “Was of his love daungerous to me” (pg 171; ln 514), making the times when he was tender very precious. Yet she did not take everything he gave her lying down. Dame Alice is no Griselda. She was loose-tongued about his affairs, revealing even damning secrets about him to no fewer than three other women: A “gossib”, “another worthy wyf”, and “my nece, which that I loved weel” (pg 172; ln 529, 536-37). In addition, when his preaching about terrible wives of history caused the Wife “The wo that in myn herte was, and pyne” (pg 178; ln 787), the Wife of Bath informs us her response was that “Al sodeynly thre leves have I plyght/Out of his book, right as he radde, and eke/I with my fest so took hym on the cheke/That in oure fyr he fil bakward adoun” (pg 178-79; ln 790-93). This is the major turning point in their relationship; because of his fear that he killed her in the following exchange, this fifth husband is finally made like the others, with one difference.
He yaf me al the bridel in myn hond,
To han the governance of hous and lond,
And of his tonge, and of his hond also;
And made hym brenne his book anon right tho.
And whan that I hadde geten unto me
By maistrie, al the soveraynetee,
And that he seyed, “Myn owene trewe wyf,
Do as thee lust the terme of al thy lyf;
Keep thyn honour, and keep eek myn estaat”--
After that day we hadden never debaat.
God help me so, I was to hym as kynde
As any wyf from Denmark unto Ynde,
And also trewe, and so was he to me.
(pg 179; ln 813-825)
With her first three husbands, there was a constant necessity of reasserting her dominance, the chiding was constant, to make them willing to chase after her all-too-rare moments of kindness. After this one moment, however, it seems that the Wife of Bath was never forced to go to any trouble to maintain her grasp on her position of authority. In fact, once she had obtained her full sovereignty over her husband, she became “to hym as kynde/As any wyf” (pg 179; ln 823-24) in the world. This arrangement sounds rather reminiscent of the woman in the Wife of Bath’s Tale. Rather, since the Wife of Bath is the one telling her Tale, we might be safe assuming that the conclusions she draws about what the idealized version of wifehood is in her Tale are based on her experiences being a wife. Since she did love her fifth husband best, it stands to reason that she considers her best experience of wifehood to have been that which she had while she was his wife; from there it makes sense that she would consider the best experiences of wifehood to arise for one who is being the best wife.
The Lawyer’s Tale shows us a woman, Constance, who when she thought she was leaving her home in Rome to be married off to a sultan, was of one mindset. She was distraught at the thought of having to leave behind her family and friends, but with a sense of duty, she accepted that “unto the Barbre nacioun/I moste anoon, syn that it is youre wille” (pg 131; ln 281-82). She also makes a statement which is in some ways more extreme than Griselda’s oath of obedience to the Marquis. Constance says that “Wommen are born to thraldom and penance,/And to been under mannes governance” (pg 131; ln 286-87). Where Griselda made, of her own volition, a promise to be obedient, she allowed another to be in control of her, maintaining by that allowance the self-mastery that was necessary for her to be able to hand over that control. In Constance, however, we see a woman who believes that she does not have the autonomy to hand over sovereignty, for she cannot give what she doesn’t have in the first place. Considering that she has lived under the rule of her father up to this point in her life, and is leaving home only to become wife of another man, it is easy to see how she has formed this conception of what her role toward men ought to be.
When Constance finds herself in Northumberland, and becomes wife of the Briton King Alla, she is in an unusual position as his wife. For insofar as he is a monarch, she is subject to him simply by being an inhabitant of his realm. As his wife, in addition, at the very least she “moste take in pacience at nyght/Swiche manere necessaries as been plesynges/To folk that han ywedded he with rynges” (pg 143; ln 710-12). Although her husband leaves for war again before they have much chance to examine the dynamic of their married life, and soon after that she is banished through villainy and misunderstanding, Constance maintains through all a level of acceptance of her fate that is in feel very reminiscent of Griselda’s acceptance of Walter’s commands. When they were finally reunited, after all the misunderstandings had been put right and blame reassigned as necessary, “I trowe an hundred tymes been they kist” (pg 154; ln 1074). This tender action, especially repeated, and the amount of sorrow each had felt when they were estranged implies a level of love and understanding between them greater than what would exist if Constance considered herself merely at Alla’s disposal as a servant or even a subject. In meeting him, in being his wife, it seems her perception has changed ever so slightly from her earlier statement about women’s always being in thrall and under the governance of men. Still she “mekely” (pg 154; ln 1079) asked a favour of King Alla, but this seems to have far more to do with her general nature than a fear that she is in any danger of overstepping her place by asking something of him too aggressively.
Despite her having been tricked into believing that it was “his unkyndenesse” (pg 153; ln 1057) that got her banished from England, Constance generally attributes the things which befall her not to any man’s will, but to the will of God. In this way, she is perhaps the image of the individual the Clerk’s Tale describes to us by allegory. Time and again, through her woes, Constance re-dedicates herself to Christ and to His mother Mary. Perhaps she is the woman sought for by the Clerk’s Tale. She has achieved perfect devotion to God, and in so doing, she is perfectly deferent to her husband. Not to the extent that she will not even ask him a favour, but enough so that she is a faithful wife, on the order of Griselda or a post-wedding night knight’s wife.
Zenobia, an historical figure discussed by the Monk at some length in his serial tale, was at first unwilling to be married, for “to no man deigned hire for to be bonde.” (pg 442; ln 3067) Eventually her friends prevailed on her to wed, and she took Odenathus, one of few men who was her equal in combative might and also “Hadde swiche fantasies as hadde she” (pg 442; ln 3072), for her husband. Zenobia and Odenathus may have “lyved in joye and in felicitee” (pg 442; ln 3074), but they took what looks like a very strange approach to their married life, by being equals on the battlefield, and then having an unusual dynamic in their home. Specifically, Zenobia was clearly in charge of their sex life. She
Wolde nevere assente,
By no wey, that he sholde by hire lye
But ones, for it was hir pleyn entente
To have a child, the world to multiplye;
And also soone as that she myghte espye
That she was nat with childe with that dede,
Thanne wolde she suffre hym doon his fantasye
Eft-soone, and nat but oones, out of drede.
...Al were this Odenake wilde or tame,
He gat namoore of hire, for thus she sayde,
It was to wyves lecherie and shame,
In oother caas, if that men with hem pleyde.
(pg 442; ln 3076-91)
It is unclear whether he got power over any aspect of their lives to make up for that. Yet while Zenobia was hardly incapable of ruling their lands without Odenathus -- in fact, “whan Odenake was deed, she myghtily/The regnes heeld” (pg 443; ln 3124-25) -- there was something even more impressive about their teamwork than her alone. “Ne nevere myghte hir foomen doon hem flee,/Ay whil that Odenakes dayes laste” (pg 443; ln 3114-15).
Then there is the Lady Dorigen in the Franklin’s tale. Her husband Arveragus
...swore hire as a knyght
That nevere in al his lyf he, day ne nyght,
Ne sholde upon hym take no maistrie
Agayn hir wyl, ne kithe hire jalousie,
But hire obeye, and folwe hir wyl in al,
As any lovere to his lady shal,
Save that the name of soveraynetee,
That wolde he have for shame of his degree,
(pg 311; ln 746-52)
and yet, she agreed “To take hym for hir housbonde and hir lord,/Of swich lordshipe as men han over hir wyves.” (pg 311; ln 742-43) So we have again the notion that it is simply understood: society at large treasures at least a certain amount of deference to her husband in a wife, even in an instance where she is “comen of so heigh kynrede/That wel unnethes dorste this knyght, for drede,/Telle hire his wo, his peyne, and his distresse” (pg 311; ln 735-37). Society’s preferences are not the only ones at play here, though. Almost exactly like we saw with the Wife of Bath’s fifth marriage and the couple in her Tale, Dorigen promises Arveragus that
...Sith of youre gentillesse
Ye profre me to have so large a reyne,
Ne wolde nevere God bitwixe us tweyne,
As in my gilt, were outher werre or stryfe.
Sire, I wol be youre humble trewe wyf,
Have heer my trouthe, til that myn herte breste.
(pg 311; ln 754-59)
This arrangement ends up working in the couple’s favour once she makes her somewhat foolish promise to her would-be lover Aurelius about the rocks, and that squire comes to claim his payment. Although it is laid out so similarly to the Wife of Bath’s dynamics, the dynamic between Dorigen and Arveragus is one that, more in the style of Griselda’s and the Marquis’, makes us a little uncomfortable. It’s for an almost opposite reason that we’re disturbed, though. With Griselda, we were horrified that her devotion to her husband could overcome the devotion a mother rightly gives her children. Here, Arveragus’ upholding of a promise his wife made in a moment of foolishness -- a promise which destroys the exclusivity of their relationship -- is equally upsetting. Among the questions we are forced to ask are: doesn’t the marriage vow of fidelity trump her facetious promise to commit adultery with the man who rids the coast of the rocks? and is this not the case especially since she made the wedding vows first? While these questions are fascinating, they are not the purview of this paper. However, it is key to understand why we are upset at their relationship before we can explore how closely Chaucer believes this woman fits a notion of ideal wifehood. Clearly a mistake was made, in that Dorigen ought not to have made a promise which she knew she ought not keep, even if she believed that the circumstances under which she would be required to fulfill it would never come about. What is less obvious to us is whether this mistake strips her of the virtuous intent with which she entered into her marriage. Her goal was never to be in a position of imminent unfaithfulness to her husband. She did give those circumstances the possibility of existing, however, by entering into negotiations with Aurelius on the subject at all.
Another example from the Canterbury Tales of a woman who makes an honest mistake is the wife of the miller Simpkin in the Reeve’s tale. Thanks to the student John’s deception with the cradle, she is tricked into the wrong bed, to lie with the wrong man. Though “So myrie a fit ne hadde she nat ful yoore” (pg 114; ln 4230), we have no reason to conclude that she wanted to be unfaithful in the first place. Rather than being the instigator of the cuckolding, she’s as much a victim as the girl the knight raped in the Wife of Bath’s tale, the only difference being that Simpkin’s wife was overcome by cunning rather than brute force. It is interesting to note that, while Alan’s defiling of their daughter does come to light through Alan’s confused confession, and Simpkin’s outrage and his violence in reaction to the violation of his daughter follows, we are never told what his or his wife’s reaction is, when the full account of the evening is brought to light. It is discovered, surely, for the wife is still lying next to John when she is awakened by the commotion of what she thinks is the two clerks fighting but is actually the struggle between her husband and Alan. Since it is one of the participants in the tussle that she strikes, and since her husband is the one who ends up unconscious, she must know in hindsight that it was a clerk with whom she lay. Because the clerks leave so quickly, and we never witness the full distress of the family, it is very easy to agree with the Reeve’s pithy moral to this tale, “Hym thar nat wene wel that yvele dooth” (pg 117; ln 4320). However, the wife is a victim herself, used in the fable for the punishment of her husband.
Where the aforementioned women made an honest mistake that led to or almost led to her committing adultery, there are others aplenty who intentionally engage in conjugal relations other than with their husbands. The carpenter from the Miller’s Tale keeps a close eye on his new wife. “Jalous he was, and heeld hire narwe in cage,/For she was wylde and yong, and he was old,/And demed hymself been lik a cokewold” (pg 87; ln 3224-26). Despite his best efforts, or perhaps because of them, she and her lover Nicholas are still able to devise circumstances in which they can trick her husband into giving them an opportunity to be together without being caught. In the Merchant’s Tale, similarly, the knight January becomes particularly suspicious of his wife as his eyesight begins to deteriorate, until his
Jalousye it was so outrageous,
That neither in halle, n’yn noon oother hous,
Ne in noon oother place, neverthemo,
He nolde suffre hire for for to ryde or go,
But if that he had hond on hire alway;
For which ful ofte wepeth fresshe May
(pg 280; ln 2087-92)
which suspicion, though well placed, was again ineffective at preventing exactly what he feared would occur. The similarities between these tales are remarkable, their differences mostly pertaining to the manner of the deception that was used to allow the illicit lovers time together without the husbands’ knowledge.
But how does this all make husbands see their wives? So far, the wives have gone into their marriages hoping to be either the submissive party, the dominant party, or an essentially equal partner. The relationship between the two has been showcased as necessary -- no wife without her husband. What about his side of things? There can be also no husband without a wife. The states of life men can attain are mirrored fairly accurately to those of the women. A man may marry and be a husband. He can remain a bachelor. He can enter religious life. In this last, he has another set of options, since there are monks, friars, and priests, and the lifestyle and responsibilities of each are fairly disparate. Again, all of these sorts of men are present in The Canterbury Tales, even among the pilgrims, and even more examples of each throughout the tales themselves.
I shall begin with the metanarrators. Although some of the pilgrims are willing to defend wifehood on principle, such as the Reeve, who exclaims that “It is a synne and eek a greet folye...to bringen wyves in swich fame” (pg 84; ln 3146-48), every pilgrim who mentions his own wife does so bewailing how unpleasant she is. The Host, after hearing the Tale of Melibee, complains that his own wife was not present to hear the tale, “For she nys no thyng of swich pacience/As was this Melibeus wyf Prudence” (pg 431; ln 2692-93). The Merchant as well begins his own prologue with the statement that
‘Wepyng and waylyng, care and oother sorwe
I knowe ynough, on even and a-morwe,’
Quod the Marchant, ‘and so doon other mo
That wedded been. I trowe that it be so,
For wel I woot it fareth so with me.
I have a wyf, the worste that may be.
(pg 257; ln 1213-18)
The Pardoner, yet a bachelor, is so overwrought by the picture the Wife of Bath begins to paint of wifehood that he interrupts her prologue to exclaim that “I was about to wedde a wyf; allas!/What sholde I bye it on my flesshe so deere?” (pg 162; ln 166-67). The Miller gives us a strange kind of statement on the subject, for although he says of wives in general that “Ther been ful goode wyves many oon,/And evere a thousand goode ayayns oon badde” (pg 84; ln 3154-55), he also says of his own life that
I have a wyf, pardee, as wel as thow;
Yet nolde I, for the oxen in my plogh,
Take upon me moore than ynogh,
As demen of myself that I were oon (cuckold)
I wol bileve wel that I am noon.
An housbonde shal not been inquisityf
Of Goddes pryvetee, nor of his wyf.
(pg 84; ln 3158-64)
That is, that he remains purposefully ignorant of his wife’s business, specifically in case he should come to discover that she is, in fact, being unfaithful to him. While this is not a direct complaint against his wife’s treatment of him, it is hardly an overwhelming vote of confidence in her devotion to him.
As for the characters in the tales these pilgrims tell, to begin with, in the Merchant’s tale, which we have already discussed a little bit, the knight January enumerates a wide selection of benefits to having a wife. Funnily enough, of course, he “folwed aye his bodily delyt/On wommen, ther as was his appetyt” (pg 258; ln 1249-50) the whole sixty years up until he chose to wed. This is strange, since one of those reasons he says marriage is so good is that it helps a man who otherwise “may nat lyven chaast his lyf” (pg 263; ln 1446) to avoid the sin of adultery. Which he has already committed. Presumably a lot. Decide to wed he did -- admittedly, it wasn’t his only reason -- and was so adamant about it once his mind was made up that he chose to ignore the advice of one of his friends in favour of continuing with his plan of matrimony. By the end of the story of January and May, however, Queen Persephone has worked it so that forevermore, wives who are suspected of -- or even caught -- being unfaithful to their husbands will be able to find a way of talking themselves out of seeming guilty. This surely seems like a blessing to those wives who are desirous of committing adultery. To their husbands -- and not just theirs, because how can you tell the difference now? To any husbands -- though, that makes wives inherently untrustworthy -- even the ones who are entirely trustworthy.
May talked herself out of being blamed for having slept with a man who is not her husband. The wife from the skipper’s tale, though she does have an affair with the monk Don Jon, is never caught at it and does not need to explain away her actions in that regard. She does, however, use her quick tongue and her lover’s friendship with her husband to help her out of having to admit to her husband that she has spent his money on frivolities without his permission until it is far too late for him to do anything about it. The skipper begins his prologue with the accusation that
A wyf...of excellent beautee;
and compaignable and revelous...
is a thyng that causeth more dispence
Than worth is al the chiere and reverence
That men hem doon at festes and at daunces,
(pg 361; ln 3-7)
and she acts as a wife about whom this is certainly the case. The reaction of her husband to her extravagance, however, I find strange. Though he does suggest that she “be namoore so large” (pg 372; ln 431), he also says within himself that “ther was no remedie,/And for to chide it nere but folie” (pg 372; ln 427-28). This is a very defeatist attitude for him to have with regard to the behaviour of his wife. It is almost as though he agrees with the original conception the Wife of Bath presents of the desires of the wives, and he is merely striving to allow his wife charge of whatever of their affairs she wishes. Yet we know this is not completely the case, for he does “incharge” her to “Keep bet thy good” (pg 372; ln 432), indicating that he is not fully relinquishing all his affairs to her control.
The commonly accepted purpose of the Canterbury Tales is that which the Host gives to the pilgrims, that their Tales are being told to “doon yow myrthe” (pg 23; ln 766). Chaucer, however, in taking his leave of the reader, states that “oure book seith, ‘Al that is writen is writen for oure doctrine,’ and that is myn entente” (pg 607; ln 3120-21). Although Chaucer does not specify for us what doctrine he is most interested in furthering with this work, we are perfectly capable of taking from him what lesson we can find in his words, and we are at liberty to presume that, even if the lesson we learn was not the lesson for which cause he wrote, it is one he would not be overly distraught at having taught. Therefore, while Chaucer likely did not set out to write a manual detailing what the ideal method of being a wife is, he nevertheless left us a text from which such knowledge can perhaps be gleaned.
In the “real life” examples of matrimonial life which we hear described, it seems that marriage is a state of life to be feared, as it makes all who enter it miserable. Every husband among the pilgrims complains of his wife’s bickering and unpleasantness. The one Wife among the travellers is a woman who has, by her own admission, made life rather difficult for her husbands. Yet in general, the state of wifehood is still defended as a good. In the numerous “fictive” Tales that all these people relate, there is a broad spectrum presented of what wifehood looks like and what it truly means to be a wife. Those wives whose endings come to the most good, those who are awarded the stereotypical “happily ever after”, tend to be women who had immense respect for their husbands, and who allowed those same spouses a high level of mastery over their selves. At its most basic level, this means they had a high level of respect for the fidelity demanded by the marriage vows. Adulteresses tend to end up being very unhappy people in the Canterbury Tales. Not only are the faithful wives more likely to be rewarded, those who give up an amount of autonomy to their husbands tend to be granted the most peaceful and joyous epilogues. These women are not cowering slaves, however. Every one who did this made a conscious choice herself to hand over that autonomy. In a way, this keeps the power in her own hands. Every moment of her married life, the choice has to be re-made. She continues to exercise her own will by choosing to do what is desired by her husband’s. Society is occasionally referenced as being the governing factor in declaring that a wife “ought” to be subservient in this manner. Yet many of the happiest wives in question are women whose husbands specifically said that they would not claim sovereignty over their wives except as much as society required. Each wife to whom this promise was made decided to return that mastery at all times, not only when in the public eye. In choosing obedience, they chose domestic peace, and as far as Chaucer lets us know, they chose happiness. Perhaps society suggests wifely submission because it knows that we will be happy in such a state.
It would be entirely false to claim that “Ther nys namoore to seye” (pg 281; ln 2122) on this subject. Yet despite the openings for further discovery, it is time that this paper, like all things, come to an end.
Now preye I to hem alle that herkne this litel tretys or rede, that if ther be any thyng in it that liketh hem that therof they thanken oure Lord Jhesu Crist, of whom procedeth al wit and al goodnesse. And if ther be any thyng that displese hem, I preye hem also that they arrette it to the dafaute of myn unkonnynge, and nat to my wyl, that wolde ful fayn have seyd bettre if I hadde had konnynge.
(pg 606-07; ln 3113-120)
No comments:
Post a Comment