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Asked by: Jinhua Dobrolensky
family and relationships divorceWhat is the purpose of the Wife of Bath's Prologue?
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.
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 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.
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.