Does the Wife make a good case for more than one marriage inthe first 162 lines of the Wife of Bath's Prologue?

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Does the Wife make a good case for more than one marriage in the first 162 lines of the Wife of Bath’s Prologue?

The Wife of Bath clearly believes strongly in a woman’s right to marry freely. However, whether she puts her argument across effectively is a different matter. Her position to marriage is in direct conflict with that of the Church at that time which believed that marriage was a sacred union and one could marry only once. On the one hand, her argument is strong. She uses Biblical references to support her argument, a risky tactic used by Chaucer given the moral strength of the Church at the time- although the Church’s power was being challenged more and more in this period of change. She is very defensive in her arguments, because she has had more than one marriage herself and therefore she needs to argue her case fully. She extensively uses metaphors to argue her case too, an effective method of debating. It could also be said that she strengthens her argument by repeating what she has already previously stated. However, there are flaws in her argument. By repeating what she has said, it could be said that her argument merely lacks structure. Also she seems to contradict various points in her line of reasoning, a significant flaw in the way she makes her case.

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Her argument advocating polygamy is, in effect, an attack on the Church’s principles at this time. Whereas the religious authority believed that people should adhere to the principles of virginity, she argues that if everyone were chaste, there would be no next generation:

“if ther were no seed ysowe,

Virginitee, thane wherof sholde it growe?”

This is a good logical statement to make in her argument and it throws the gauntlet on the Church, making their religious ideology seem flawed. There is example here, too, of the metaphors Chaucer uses in her argument to make the language ...

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