The Tale of the Wife of Bath:

A Tale of Personal Transformation

By

Guy Duperreault

English 204-3

Medieval and Renaissance Literature

(Distance Education, Spring 1998)

Due February 19, 1998

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Prove, disprove or qualify the following:

The Wife of Bath's story of the knight and the hag is a perfect example of
thematic story-telling: it perfectly demonstrates its moral that what
women want from marriage most of all is dominance over the male.

The Wife of Bath's Tale is an example of imperfect thematic story telling because
it fails to perfectly demonstrate that what women want from marriage most of all is
dominance over the male. It fails for two reasons. The first, which has two parts, is that
the Wife of Bath fails to successfully twist the meaning of the folk tale of the loathly lady
to suit her goal. This failure was the result of her undermining her own credibility in
her prologue and because the moral of the loathly lady is not easily twisted. The
second is because the Wife of Bath is, in fact, herself changed by her love for her fifth
husband, Jankin, and this change subtly undermines her own argument in the telling of
the tale.
The Wife of Bath tried to prove that what "women most desiren" (49) is "for to be
in maistry him above" (184) by distorting what was likely a quite well know folk tale,
that of the loathly lady. It can be inferred from the many parallels and in the subtlety of
the distinctions that this is a tale which the Wife of Bath, i.e. Chaucer, knew very well1 .
But the twist the Wife of Bath puts on this tale does not quite succeed. The first reason
for her failure to bend the story to her will is because in her prologue the Wife of Bath
undermined the credibility of the integrity of her own argumentation because she
established a pattern of manipulating the Bible to justify her marriages. Within forty
lines of her prologue the Wife of Bath began to distort the Bible when she cited wise
King Solomon's having had 700 wives as reason enough for her having wed five times:
"Lo, here the wise king daun Salomon,
I trow he hadde wives mo than oon —
As would God it leveful were to me
To be refreshed half so oft as he!
Which yift of God had he for all his wives!" (35-9)
The Wife of Bath was either unaware of Solomon's damnation — which seems unlikely
given her being able to refer to Lamech's bigamy (Wife of Bath-P 60:Genesis 5:19) — or
stepped blithely over it as irrelevant to her point. But the Bible spells out the
consequences of Solomon's polygamy:
For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart
after other gods: and his heart was not perfect with the LORD his God, as was
the heart of David his father. (I Kings 11:4)
The wife of bath also bent Paul in I Corinthians:
"For than th'apostle saith that I am free

1
Versions of the story still exist today, which is a measure of its power and relevance. I refer to two, those by Hastings
and Young-Eisendrath. Hasting's version is a recent translation for children, while Young-Eisendrath's is a study in
Jungian psychology.
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To wed, a Goddes half, where it liketh me —

He saith that to be wedded is no sinne:
'Bet is to be wedded than to brinne.'" (55-58)
What Paul actually said was that if one cannot remain celibate then marriage is better
than burning sexual desire leading one to commit fornication:
2 ... to avoid fornication, let every ... woman have her own husband.
8 I say ... to the widows, It is good for them if they abide even as I2 .
9 But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to
burn.
And the Wife of Bath skipped over I Corinthians 7:4 completely, probably because it is
bluntly ambivalent with respect to her argument.
The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also
the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife.
These twists of the Bible by the Wife of Bath establish in the minds of her travelling
companions (and readers) the manner with which she forces established authority to fit
her point of view. This awareness keeps her version of the story of the loathly lady,
despite its emotional appeal, humour and elements of truth, from becoming much
more than a good story.
And while the Wife of Bath's story is a very good one, the "unbent" story of the
loathly lady is an even better one, which is the second reason why the Wife of Bath was
unable to credibly twist it to prove her premise that what women want is mastery over
their husbands. At its heart the story of the loathly lady is about a triple redemption:
that of the male from his unconscious insensitivity and anti-feminist behaviours and
attitudes; that of the female from a horrible spell, by the transformed male; and that of
the man and woman, from the pains of patriarchal-based separation symbolized by the
spell she was under and the inability of the knight to see beneath it, by mutual respect
and love. In these three aspects it is a story about release from the bounds of
patriarchy, and was thus not amenable to the Wife of Bath's efforts at making it justify a
patriarchal attitude, that of mastery over another.
In the "true" version (Hastings and Young-Eisendrath, for example) there was no
rape — or at least no literal rape. Instead, the good King Arthur accidentally trespassed
on another king's property while hunting. It is possible, even easy, to see this as a
metaphor for rape. And, while it is not necessary for the success of the story of the
loathly lady for it to be rape, it works far better as a metaphor than it does to be made
explicit because as a metaphor it opens up the whole vista of rape beyond just sexual
violence, to include rape of the landscape, psychological or emotional rape, including
patriarchal attitudes, etc. The Wife of Bath, in trying to make her story more pointed
than the original by making the trespass an actual rape (32), actually has the opposite
effect by narrowing its meaning. Because he was in the wrong, even though in ignor-
ance, Arthur accepted responsibility for his trespass by accepting both the other lord's

2
Paul infers his own celibacy.
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death sentence and the riddle as an out from it. Because he was unable to solve the
riddle, King Arthur reluctantly, but in desperation, accepted the answer from the
loathly lady in exchange for his promise that she will be wed to one of Arthur's
knights3 . Arthur did not have the courage to ask this of any of his knights but, while
sharing his problem with his wife Guinevere, the courageous and gallant Sir Gawain
overheard the king4 . Gawain volunteered on the spot and, in the crunch, demonstrated
that he had more than just grudgingly volunteered by going through with it whole
heartedly:
...Gawain jumped down from his horse and knelt before the Lady. "Madame,"
he said, "will you honour me with your hand in marriage?"
"Oh, Sir Gawain, not you. Have you, too, come to mock me?" said the
lady. But when she looked into the knight's honest face, she knew he had
spoken sincerely, so gave him her hand and let him lead her...to the castle
(Hastings 20-1).
Compare this to the Wife of Bath's version, in which the knight, fearing for his life, is
forced to marry the hag despite trying to wiggle out of it.
This knight answered, "Alas and weilaway!
I wot right well that swich was my bihest.
For Goddes love, as chees a new requeste:
Take all my good and let my body go." (202-5)
And when the hag asked for his love he recoiled with "'My love!' quod he, 'nay, my
dampnacioun!'" (210) These statements significantly weaken the Wife of Bath's version
because it renders the transformation of the knight, from a rapist to a man willing to
bow to the will of this woman, almost unbelievable. In the original, the knight acted
with integrity from the start, and this attitude makes his transformation less magical
than that of the Wife of Bath's rapist.
DeRoo cites the knight's honest communication with the hag as a key to his
transformation (148). While this is important — and I see communication as a key part
of the original story as well, such as when Arthur talked to his wife — it is not enough
to convince me that the knight could be so quickly or completely changed by the hag's
harangue, regardless the monologue's beauty, truth and power (250-350).
Furthermore, the indications of actual communication after her monologue are unclear:
there is no sign from him that he heard her, let alone understood her, before the hag
gave him the choice between her becoming beautiful, but sexually dangerous, or ugly

3
In Hastings the time given to solve the riddle is three days (8). In Young-Eisendrath it is a year (16). In Young-Eisend-
rath, the name of the hag is given, the Lady Ragnall, as is the name of the Lord who threatened Arthur's life, Sir Gromer
Somer Jour. Furthermore, it turns out that Sir Gromer Somer Jour was the Lady Ragnall's brother, and he had cursed her
for being disobedient (16 & 17).

4
In Young-Eisendrath, the Lady Ragnall demands of Arthur that he asks Sir Gawain if he will marry her. Gawain
accepts his Uncle's plea, of his own free will (16-7).
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and chaste5 :
"Chees now," quod she, "one of these things tweye:
To han me foul and old till that I deye
And be to you a trewe humble wif
And never you displese in all my lif;
Or elles ye wol han me yong and fair
And take your aventure of the repair
That shall come to your house by cause of me —" (364-9).
Not only has he not indicated his transformation, nothing he has said or done leading
up to and including wedding night would indicate that he deserved this choice!
Certainly not his "honestly" telling her that he can't sleep with her because she is old,
ugly and beneath him (244-5)! He had made that sentiment plain when he was forced
to honour his promise to her in the first place (211-13). But in Hastings' and Young-
Eisendrath's versions, not only did Gawain respectfully propose marriage to the hag, he
respected their wedding day. While it failed to be a joyful event, the gentleman Gawain
took the wedding seriously:
The wedding of Sir Gawain and the Loathly Lady was a dismal occasion.... [A]fter
the [uneaten] feast the musicians began to play; but no one had the heart to
dance. Then Gawain seemed to shake himself awake, and gently leading his wife
into the centre of the hall, he guided her through the slow steps of a courtly
measure. Arthur followed with Guinevere, and then all the knights with their
ladies....(21-2).
Young-Eisendrath describes the wedding as follows:
There [is] a great wedding banquet attended by the lords and ladies of the castle.
Everyone is uncomfortable, squirming and commenting on the ugliness and bad
manners of the bride. Ragnall, however, is unabashed: she eats heartily and
appears to have a very good time.
In the wedding chamber later that evening, Ragnall seems pleased with
Gawain's responses to her. "You have treated me with dignity," she says. "You
have been neither repulsed nor pitying in your concern for me. Come kiss me
now."
Gawain steps forward and kisses her on the lips and lo!, there stands a
lovely and graceful woman with beautiful grey eyes. (17)
Unlike the rapist in the Wife of Bath's story, we see that Gawain, while ensconced in a
patriarchal society, had enough integrity to respect at least the form of civility owed to
women as demanded of that society. Thus when the loathly lady gave him the choice
of having her beautiful by day or by night, it is not unbelievable, or at least not as
unbelievable as in the Wife of Bath's version.
And what about the knight's quick answer to the hag's proffered choice? After

5
In the original, the choice is between having her beautiful at night and ugly during the day, or vice versa. The Wife of
Bath's twist is an entertaining one, and pointedly anti-patriarchal and counter to her stated desire of mastery over
another.
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one harangue from an old, ugly woman beneath his station, if it is not amazing, then it
is certainly doubtful, that the man who a few hours earlier had called his "haranguer"
his damnation would be able to beautifully answer the hag with
"My lady and my love, my wife so dere,
I put me in your wise governaunce:
Cheeseth yourself which may be most pleasaunce
And most honour to you and to me also.
I do no fors the wheither of the two,
For as you liketh it suffiseth me." (374-9)
Again, the original version is much more believable. In Hastings' version Gawain,
despite his gentlemanly affectations and intellectual knowledge that what women want
most is sovereignty over their own lives, must still be guided by the hag into releasing
his anti-feminism6 . On his wedding night his ugly wife became beautiful and asked
Gawain "'... would you have me beautiful by day and hideous by night? Or would you
have me beautiful at night, as I am now, and my old ugly shape during the day?'"
(Hastings 26) Already ready for bed he jumped at the second choice. But she rebuked
him his answer: "'Do you condemn me to the contempt of the whole court, ...unable to
let darkness hide my shame? That is not what I expect a loving husband to wish for
me....'" (Hastings 26-7) Gawain quickly responded: "'Oh forgive me....That was cruelly
thoughtless of me. Be beautiful by day, my love, and at night resume your old shape'"
(Hastings 27). Again the lady chastised him: "'[D]o you love your wife so little that you
care not how vile she looks lying beside you? ... Do you not consider my feelings at
having to come to you every night repellent and deformed?'" (Hastings 27) Finally
Gawain answered "'Madame, I am unable to answer your question. I must leave it to
you. You must choose whichever you prefer'" (Hastings 27). And the spell was broken
and the hag stayed beautiful both day and night.
At its heart, the story of the loathly lady is about how a man comes to respect
the feminine in life (and, by metaphor, within himself), and how that releases femininity
from the confines of ugly patriarchy which leads to the respectful union of men and
women as symbolized by "they lived happily ever after7 . Thus it is not hard to see why
the Wife of Bath was unable to make her twists of the story of the loathly believable:
her version was designed to extend a patriarchal attitude, that of mastery over another,
with a story that is fundamentally anti-patriarchal.
A nice irony of the story, and the second reason that her argument fails, is that
the Wife of Bath may well have chosen the story of the loathly lady because, with her
relationship with Jankin, she was in fact losing her own patriarchal attitude. Her

6
Young-Eisendrath's has the less convincing "Gawain falls silent, pondering the intent of the question, but only for a
moment. 'It is your choice Ragnall, because it involves your life. Only you can decide'" (18).

7
In jungian psychology this an archetypal story, that of the hierosgamos, i.e. the sacred internal marriage between a
person and his/her internal feminine/masculine (the anima/animus in Jungian terms). To Jungian psychologists this is
considered a key step in developing personal wholeness and a spiritual life (Franz & Young-Eisendrath, passim.).
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original attitude is revealed by her patronizing and patriarchal description of her first
four husbands and her relationship to, not with, them. Her changed attitude, which she
may not be fully conscious of, is indicated by how she described her fifth husband and
in actually naming him. The prologue gives intimate details about that relationship,
where it is made clear that their union as husband and wife began as a bickering and
uncommunicative couple, each hurting the other through their patriarchal actions.
(Note that the first four husbands were unable to hurt her like Jankin did.) But when
she confronted Jankin by physically hitting him with pages torn from his book of
loathly wives — a symbol of patriarchal hatred — and he in retaliation struck her in
honest anger and then honestly apologized (798-313), they came to see each other more
clearly and began a relationship with one another:
But at the last with muchel care and wo
We fill accorded by us selven two. (817-8)
And while the Wife of Bath claimed to take by mastery her property back from him
(823-4), Jankin would have been under no legal requirement to give it back. The return
of her property can be seen, then, as a gift on his part. It was, in effect, the gift of
sovereignty over her own life, and a perfect echo of the moral of the tale of the loathly
lady. And, surprisingly enough, in her prologue, the Wife of Bath effectively said just
that!
And that he said "Mine owne trewe wif,
Do as thee lust the term of all thy life,
Keep thine honour, and keep eek mine estat —"
After that day we hadden never debat!
God help me so, I was to him kinde
As any wife from Denmark unto Inde
And also trewe, and so was he to me. (825-31)
The Wife of Bath unconsciously betrayed this change in herself in her re-telling of the
loathly lady. At the end of the harangue, the hags says
"But natheless, sin I know your delit
I shall fulfill your worldly appetit." (361-2)
This does not sound like someone striving for patriarchal mastery over her husband.
And later, the Wife of Bath had the knight answer the hag's proffered choice with the
following:
"Cheeseth yourself which may be most pleasaunce
And most honour to you and to me also." (376-7 my emphasis)
Notice that it is mutual respect that the knight is suggesting, which contradicts her
stated objective of mastery. And when she revealed that
"For by my trouth, I wol be to you bothe —
This is to sayn, ye, bothe fair and good" (384-5)
the Wife of Bath tells us that
... she obeyed him in every thing
That might do him pleasance or liking.
And thus they live unto hir lives ende
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In parfit joy. (399-402)

Again, these are not the words of a woman seeking mastery, but union and
relationship.
The Wife of Bath must have realized that she had failed to end her story having
proved her point, or even with a pointed quip about it, because the last six and a half
lines of good old-fashioned man-bashing have a tacked on feel to them:
"And eek I pray Jesu shorte hir lives
That not wol be governed by hir wives.
And old and angry niggards of dispence
— God send hem soon a veray pestilence!" (405-8)
They look like a kind of retraction or back-track away from "Ande thus they live unto
her lives ende/In parfit joy" (401-2), which was not the way to end a story which was
suppose to prove that what women want is sovereignty over men. Furthermore, if this
ending does anything it undermines her theme by looking like a kind of after thought
jest, especially falling, as it does, after the archetypally satisfying "And they lived
happily ever after." DeRoo states that her retraction was a withdrawal from fantasy
(152). And while this is true, it is so superficially. From an emotional perspective the
Wife of Bath's "real" voice lacks the archetypal truth of the union of opposites and their
redemption. In searching for, or needing, meaning in life the human being wants to see
the possibility of redemption and wholeness. This is why the original is a better, more
powerful story than the Wife of Bath's: it does not try to mix its message. And it is also
why the Wife of Bath was unable to successfully pervert its meaning.
Clearly, the Wife of Bath's tale failed to be a perfect example of thematic story
telling. It failed because the Wife of Bath was a fully realized character, very alive and
imbued with the dichotomies and unconscious behaviours of any living human being.
A part of the Wife of Bath believed, or perhaps used to believe, that what women
wanted was mastery over their husbands. This likely arose because of her relationships
with her first four husbands. But her relationship with Jankin and, perhaps, middle age,
had softened that attitude. This change in herself, and the difficulty in changing a story
with archetypal imagery and truth, left her unable to twist the story of the loathly lady,
even with her excellent powers of misrepresentation as demonstrated in the prologue,
enough to prove that what women desire in marriage is sovereignty over men.
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REFERENCES

Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales: A Selection, eds. Donald R. Howard and
James Dean. Toronto: Penguin Books Canada Ltd. for Signet Classic, 1969.

Franz, Marie-Louise von and Emma Jung. The Grail Legend. New York: G.P. Putnam's
Sons, 1970.

Franz, Marie-Louise von. C.G. Jung: His Myth in our Time. New York: G.P. Putnam's
Sons, 1975. Tr. by William H. Kennedy

Hastings, Selina. Sir Gawain and the Loathly Lady. New York: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard
Books, 1985. Illustrations by Juan Wijngaard.

Young-Eisendrath, Polly. Hags and Heroes: A Feminist Approach to Jungian Psychotherapy

with Couples. Toronto: Inner City Books, 1984.

The Holy Bible: Authorized or King James Version. Philadelphia, Universal Book and Bible
House, undated.