It is not fitting that a man who has approached his wife should enter Church before he has washed. The ancient Law prescribed that man in such cases should wash, and forbade him to enter a holy place before sunset. But this may be understood spiritually, for when a man’s mind is attracted to those pleasures by lawless desire, he should not regard himself as fitted to join in Christian worship until these heated desires cool in the mind, and he has ceased to labour under wrongful passions.
It is easy to note that sex is seen as an unclean act used only to procreate. Robert Manning of Brunne also alliterated this sentiment by stating that if a man lay with his wife during times of penance they sin greatly. This attitude goes far to explain the unhealthy view of women. If making love to your wife, purely because you love her, is seen as wrong and dirty therefore are women seen as wrong and dirty also? The answer unfortunately is yes. St Augustine proclaimed that ‘women is a temple built over the sewer’. Thus claiming that although women may seem beautiful and pure, underneath they are as unclean and as filthy as a sewer. This diseased picture of women creates a catch 22 situation for females at the time.
This is a time where women can only fall into two categories. The Pit or the Pedestal - Eve or the Virgin Mary. Both of these images are highly unrealistic. As we know now, no one is all good or all bad. The figure of the Virgin Mary was the church’s retaliation against the image of the courtly lady in medieval fiction. She is maternal, warm, caring and compassionate. She is also excluded from original sin as she gave birth to Jesus through Immaculate Conception. What is the opposite to immaculate? Dirty. Again a reference to sex as filthy.
Eve, on the other hand was a temptress. She encapsulates all that is wrongful in women. Vanity, cupidity and lust. Alisoun is a faithful representation of Eve. Her physical description shows us that she has many sexual attributes. She has broad hips, which is a sign of fertility, a gap tooth and she also wears scarlet stockings. The original scarlet woman, however red is also a sign of danger. She also has the sign of Mars, which is a red birthmark on her face. Mars is the God of war so this would also be a sign of her fierce nature.
However what we need to ascertain is whether Chaucer is writing her as a strong, sexual predator, or as a comically absurd caricature of an unchaste medieval female. The Wife of Bath has been read as a feminist text and at the same time anti- feminist. To look at her prologue from a feminist viewpoint she is travelling on the pilgrimage like the men, she stands apart from the other women such as the Prioress by conducting herself in a masculine way. She preaches in her prologue, which is in fact against the law. Only the men in the party, such as the Pardoner should preach to the rest of the group. However Alisoun is educated, not obviously is the same way as the clerk. In fact she belittles his academic way of learning in favour of her own individual school of thought. In fact she starts her prologue using words like ‘authority’ and ‘experience’. Although she would have been alliterate she is very intelligent. She justifies having married five men by using the authority of The Bible. She compares herself to Solomon who had seven hundred wives and 300 mistresses. So obviously by these standards her dalliances with men would seem modest. What is interesting is that she is openly comparing herself to a man, not only that, but to a King. She also has a strong understanding of the Scriptures, even though she cannot read and with this she constructs a persuasive argument in her favour. However what is unclear is that whether we as the reader are supposed to agree with her statements and praise her on her intelligence in being able to gloss the Scriptures and pick out what she can use to her advantage. To laugh and mock her silly female interpretations of The Holy Scriptures or are we simply to see this as another way that women can manipulate anything to get their way.
Although Chaucer may have wrote Alisoun to be tenacious and resourceful he was a product of his time and would find it difficult to transcend his social context. Therefore we have to ask whether Chaucer, or in fact any man can write in the voice of a woman accurately. How does Chaucer know what life is like for medieval women? Is this why he introduces Alisoun as a caricature? She is louder than life and does not conform to the rigid outline of womanhood in this period. Or does Chaucer admire Alisoun, is that why he devotes so many words to her prologue? I believe that he both appreciates her and despises her. That is why she is full of contradiction.
If we analyse her prologue there are some very significant suggestions of misogyny in the text. First of all we are told of her husbands, three of which have died in mysterious circumstances. Could this be a hint to her using whatever means possible for her monetary gain? Her fourth was a cheater, she may be many things but Alisoun is not an adulterer. She ‘fries him in his own grease’ making him as jealous of her as she is of him. However it is Jenkin that she loves the most. However he is violent and treats her with great disrespect. This is the first suggestion of misogyny. Is it true that women are so fickle to love most what they cannot easily attain?
I bare him on hand he had enchaunted me
(My dame taughte me that subtiltee).
And eek I said I mette of him all night:
He wold han slain me as I lay upright
And all my bed was full of veray blood-
“But yet I hope that ye shall do me good;
For blood bitokeneth gold, as me was taught”
She marries Jenkin for love and not for money, she does need money as she has made a comfortable living from her previous husbands. They also married very quickly, after only a month. Jenkin is a young scholar, however he doesn’t seem perturbed by Alysoun’s superior worldly knowledge. He soon becomes cruel and bitter towards his wife. He becomes interested in reading The Book of Wicked Wives. This is a text, which was supposedly written by two authors called Valerie and Theofraste where they protested that men should not marry. It was a deeply anti feminist text. Alisoun however soon takes command of this situation and makes Jenkin burn this corrupt book. This can be seen as a feminist victory as she took control of her husband and now has the superior hand in this marriage. Or this act can be seen as deeply misogynist. Indeed Alisoun does appear to have won a victory, however burning the book is a symbol of Jenkin having to discard his knowledge and abandon his male identity to submit to his wife.
Reading the Wife’s tale there is more evidence of the confusion between feminist ideas and misogynist concepts. It begins as a romance, which is far removed from the gritty realism of her prologue. However, she soon returns to this with the grotesque description of the rape of a young, virgin girl. The ladies of King Arthur’s court beg the noble King to leave the knights life in their hands. They pose him a question, which is very similar to that which I am trying to answer in this text. They asked him ‘What thing is it that women most desiren’ If he finds the correct answer he may live. He travels to the ends of the earth to encounter the true answer. He asks all the women he meets on his travels, they all tell him different answers. Until he meets the Loathly Lady. Could she be a parody of Alisoun? Her physical features, which are outrageous, like that of the Wife. She offers the Knight an answer, which he takes back to the ladies of the court. His answer ran like this:
A woman wants the self- same sovereignty
Over her husband as over her lover,
And master him; he must not be above her.
This answer was accepted by the ladies and the young, rapist Knight was granted freedom. The Loathly Lady came forward for her reward, marriage. Her odious features repulsed him. She offers him a choice, to keep her ugly and true or change into a beautiful maiden and run the risk of her straying and being adulterous. He cannot decide, and passes this decision to his new bride. She transforms into a young, beautiful yet true and virtuous woman. The rapist acquires the perfect wife. Is this a commendable feminist anecdote?
I believe that Chaucer is trying to represent women in a rounded view. However due to the medieval society in which he lived and the deeply misogynist notions held by most. It would also be hard for a man to relate to any woman, to get inside her head in the way that he has tried to penetrate Alisouns psyche. Whether Chaucer represents women’s desires truthfully, as he believes them to be or if he is trying to caricature and satirise the features that are widely believed by such people as Valerie and Theofraste we will never know. However I love Alisoun, I think she is a comic character but I also want her to do well. I really admire her strength and resourcefulness.
Women’s desires are represented in a wide range of ways and I believe that Chaucer has done his best to incorporate all of the good and bad parts of the female mind. We are all part Eve and part Mary. We all come from both the pit and the pedestal and no one can display this more that our hero, Alisoun.