The Wife of Bath’s Tale: Values and Realizations

Recently, we have been discussing Geoffrey Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales” particularly four tales: The Wife of Bath’s Tale, The Miller’s Tale, The Pardoner’s Tale, and The Knight’s Tale. Among the four tales, my favorite is The Wife of Bath’s Tale because it has left a great impact on me and on my views of marriage. Most importantly, it imparts values that will help in the success of relationships.

            One of the values that the tale wants to impart is faithfulness. In the tale, it was mentioned that the Wife of Bath have had five husbands and it was also said that she had a relationship with a man while she was still married to his fourth husband and this man later on became his fifth husband. This represents the fickleness of women. It only means that women should be faithful to their husbands and men to their wives.

            Another value we can get from the tale is something to do with greediness. There were parts in the tale that portrays greediness in sex or lust. The Wife of Bath has this greediness for she is using his body to manipulate men band she says that she is willing to give herself to that man. Another was when the knight raped the woman. This means that women and men should not be overcome by lust because lust is a sinful act.

                        The most important value we can get from this tale is respecting. The Wife of Bath is very selfish and she always want to be obeyed. She doesn’t know how to respect the opinions or ideas of others. It upsets her when his fifth husband a clerk, is more interested in books than he was in her. There was an instance when his husband was reading a book about how bad woman are, she snatched the book and ripped some pages out. His husband was furious and he hit her. This is how she became deaf. While at the latter part of the tale, the knight obeyed the old woman. He respected her decision and they lived happily ever after. This portrays that respect is important in a relationship.

           The main message of the old woman here in the tale is ugly or fair, women should be obeyed in all things by their husbands. As a whole, it shows that during Chaucer’s time, women have the power over their husbands. But in my opinion, it’s the contrary. After reading the Wife of Bath’s Tale, my views in marriage has changed and it gave me realizations about relationships. Before, I thought that only love is needed for a relationship to survive until I realize that I was wrong. Love is not enough. Having a successful relationship takes work from both partners. Great relationships don’t always come easy and you have to try to find ways to improve it.

            The keys to a successful relationship are faithfulness, honesty, trust, communication and respect to each other.

And as it is said in Colossians 3:18-19-“Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them”.