Asked by: Jinhua Dobrolensky
family and relationships divorce

What is the purpose of the Wife of Bath's Prologue?

Last Updated: 1st March, 2020

30
The Wife of Bath uses the prologue to explain the basis of her theories about experience versus authority and to introduce the point that she illustrates in her tale: The thing women most desire is complete control ("sovereignty") over their husbands.

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Then, what is the purpose of the Wife of Bath's Tale?

'The Wife of Bath feels she is an expert on relations between men and women because of her experience with five husbands. Her main point in her prologue and in her tale is to explain the thing women most desire - complete control - which she describes as sovereignty over their husbands.

Also, who first interrupts the Wife of Bath's Prologue? The Friar

Also Know, what are the major concepts that the Wife of Bath argues about in her prologue?

In her prologue, Chaucer's Wife defends marriage against religious teachings that claim that it is inferior to celibacy, maintaining the association of marriage with sex but embracing a more modern perspective that sexual pleasure is a virtue and rejecting the idea that wives should always obey their husbands.

What happened to the Wife of Bath's husbands?

The Wife of Bath begins her description of her two “bad” husbands. Realizing that she has digressed, she returns to the story of her fourth husband. She confesses that she was his purgatory on Earth, always trying to make him jealous. He died while she was on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

Related Question Answers

Simo Sobrados

Professional

What lesson does the ending of the Wife of Bath's Tale teach?

In the end--in what could be a final moral--because the knight has learned the lesson that giving women dominance results in men's improvement, in mercy and benevolence, in love and fidelity and beauty, the knight lives a happy life with a woman who has independence of thought, of understanding, of opinion, of decision

Rita [email protected]

Professional

What is the main idea of the Wife of Bath tale?

The Canterbury Tales: The Wife of Bath's Tale Theme of Power. A knight deprives a maiden of power over her own body; his punishment, as decided by the women of the court, is that he must find out what women most desire, which turns out to be power.

Yecenia Stokl

Professional

What does the wife of Bath symbolize?

The Wife of Bath is a headstrong bold woman of her time. She shows off her Sunday clothes with evident pride, wearing ten pounds of cloth, woven by herself under her hat. Her clothing symbolizes to the reader that she is not timid or shy and also shows off her expertise as a weaver..

Justine Schwarzhans

Explainer

What does the wife of Bath say about women's desires?

In "The Wife Of Bath's Tale", women most desire sovereignty over men in relationships. In other words, the power to have dominance over men is the one thing women most desire. Women have the ability to get what they want, when they want it. Chaucer portrays the Wife of bath as the dominant person in her marriages.

Admir Kaburneev

Explainer

What is the Wife of Bath's name?

The Wife of Bath, or Alyson, is in a constant state of marriage. Of course, she is married on the doorsteps of the church because of "company in her youth" which suggests she was a bit promiscuous as a young lady.

Esthefany Arque

Explainer

What is the relationship between the Friar and the Wife of Bath?

The Wife of Bath is a loquacious and bawdy woman whose lengthy Prologue is interrupted by the Friar, whom the Summoner accuses of "always stick[ing] his nose in the broth. Angered also, the Wife of (The entire section contains 298 words.)

Oria Adodurov

Pundit

Why is the Wife of Bath deaf in one ear?

One reason that Alison's head might be tilted in portraits of her is that Chaucer's Canterbury Tales reveals that the Wife of Bath was deaf in one ear. The injury was actually caused by her fifth husband; he was a clerk and apparently enjoyed (The entire section contains 141 words.)

Sabah Baierl

Pundit

What type of tale is the Wife of Bath?

The tale, itself, is an Arthurian romance, typified by its knight errant protagonist, its quest to answer a question, and its plot movement between court and forest. Its immediate source is a set of romances and ballads about Arthur's chief knight, Gawain, who usually is a paragon of social and ethical virtue.

Odis

Pundit

Who tells the Wife of Bath's Tale?

The Wife of Bath's Tale, one of the 24 stories in The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. Before the Wife of Bath tells her tale, she offers in a long prologue a condemnation of celibacy and a lusty account of her five marriages. It is for this prologue that her tale is perhaps best known.

Louanne Buberl

Pundit

How many good husbands did the Wife of Bath have?

five husbands

Prudencia Chaùla

Pundit

What does the wife of Bath mean?

the Wife of Bath. BrE. ?one of the best-known characters in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. She is a lively woman who has been married five times and makes many humorous remarks about sex. The story she tells, the Wife of Bath's Tale, is about one of King Arthur's knights.

Om Cot

Teacher

Who was the wife of Bath's favorite husband?

She says, "Experience, though noon auctoritee Were in this world, is right ynough for me" (Chaucer 117). The Wife of Bath has been married since the age of twelve and has had five husbands.

Souad Tabor

Teacher

How does the Wife of Bath justify her multiple marriages?

Before the Wife of Bath tells her story, she explains that she has been married five times. To justify her many marriages, she cites the facts that God instructed humans to multiply and that King Solomon had many wives. He says he will not marry after all.

Benayga Gfrorer

Teacher

How many times has the Wife of Bath been married?

The Wife of Bath's Prologue begins with a defense of serial marriage. The Wife of Bath, who has been married five times, launches her argument against those who might claim that a once-widowed woman ought to become a nun.

Xiaobing Horsten

Teacher

What made the Wife of Bath angry?

Her fifth husband read tales about bad wives every night. She reacted by ripping pages out of the book. What did the Wife of Bath do to anger her husband? She became deaf in one ear because he hit her with the book so hard.

Latino Gottschalf

Reviewer

What does the wife of Bath mean by the marriage debt?

The major feature of marriage, for the Wife, is the marriage debt, or sex, which seems to be why she's so strongly in favor of marriage. Another reason she's pro-marriage appears to be the ability to gain property, wealth, and a comfortable living situation through a husband.

Noumidia Salvan

Reviewer

Why does the Wife of Bath love her fifth husband the best?

Jankyn, the Wife's fifth husband, is a total departure from her usual marital appetite because he is young, poor, and extremely difficult to dominate. The Wife tells us that Jankyn was the husband she loved best, despite the fact that he beat her and, when they were first married, refused to bow to her authority.

Perla Schudekopf

Reviewer

What does the wife of Bath consider herself an expert on?

She is an expert in the art of love. She has attracted and married five husbands (though all at the church door--since it is hinted that she was not a pure virgin when she married), and is probably on this pilgrimmage in search of husband number six.

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