Wife of Bath! Go Females!

The three ideal states of a woman are virginity, chastity and marriage. All three ideals are opposing aspects of the wife of Bath. The prologue’s length seems long, which may indicate that the woman is talking, because the of course women always talk long and forever as it seems. From this prologue, this indicated that she is an extrovert woman. Although she may be classified as a “black widow,” there must be some logic behind her reasoning. She plays as the dominant figure of the story. She wants to hold the reigns of the horse by playing the con artist, aka the infamous strippers of Sin City. As she discusses about her relationships in the past, it previews an insight about her age, as she loses her train of thought. Yet I find her to be an empowering woman figure, because she stands for what she wants. She seems like a “suga mama,” yet it only means she wants security. The question was “why did she rip the three pages out of the book-about wicked wives?” She did it out of anger! Why would a wife be happy reading stories about horrible wives? Not because she was trying to hide something ugly about herself to the fifth husband, it was because she most likely believed the stories would alter her lover’s mind into leaving her. She didn’t want him to leave; because of course she wanted something from him. The ability for a woman to seduce a man is an inherited skill any woman could possess. She knows how to trick men into giving her things. It’s a win-win scenario, the man gives her something she wants or needs and she will give him a woman’s ideals.

Why is that men can have several wives, yet women cannot do the same with having several husbands? At the time, women were considered “objects.” Objects just like animals, property and houses. At the time it was acceptable to “beat” women, because women represented the man’s “property.” Is that why some women are evil? Maybe so, yet thank goodness, this isn’t the way anymore. The world would not revolve if there wasn’t some dilemma to deal with. Although she manipulates men and upholds a strong and brute personality, she still embraces her age when she reveals some sympathetic and fascinating character about herself.

Throughout the story, she brings attention about her habit of lying. Which may entail questioning about her perspective being truthful. Her brute personality may show some aspect of being a phenomenal actor. I mean she is a con artist after all. She claims to be an expert of marriage after five marriages, which may show a fallacy in her claim. Although she was married five times doesn’t mean she knows everything about marriage. It only means she has gained “experience.” She is mesmerized by her fifth husband, because he is different from the other four. He knows her tricks and he cannot be fooled by her art. She claims to love him, and that the previous four were purely married for money. This reminds me of what my aunty tells me all the time; to marry a man for his money, nothing else. She believes it is important to play the trophy wife when the man comes home to treat his lady. But I don’t follow that, she’s crazy and single. Yet I do understand what she claims about men. All she wants is security, which seems to resemble the wife of Bath.

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