A Review of Canterbury Tales: The Wife of Bath's Tale

 The Wife of Bath's Tale is the third tale of the Canterbury Tales. This story surprised me in a number of ways, and to me was the least predictable. I really enjoyed it.
 The story is told by a scandalous wife that has been married to five husbands. The wife practically brags on her marriage to so many men.  The fifth husband, Jankyn is much younger than she, and is the only one that she married for love. Jankyn of course makes her angry by stories of wicked wives. But all this is in in the preface to the story.
 The actual story is set during the days of King Arthur. The Knight of this tale is a lustful jerk.
 The Knight of the Wife of Bath's Tale actually rapes a woman and from this is to be punished by King Arthur. However, the queen insist for the king not to bring death sentence to the knight, and to let her decide his fate.
 The queen demands for the knight to still live that he must find what women want the most. Only if he finds this may he live.
 The Knight sets out into the Forrest but all the young maidens flee his presence. One woman alone remains, an older woman. She tells the Knight that she will tell him what women want most if he does whatever she asks. The Knight quickly agrees to her demand.
 When the Knight comes before the queen, he has rightly answered by help from the old woman, that women want more than anything to have authority over their husbands, and to have the final say in all matters.
 Impressed, the queen agrees to let the knight live. But then the old woman returns and demands the knight marry her. He takes disgust at her presence but comes to agree to her demand as he knows before all that she helped him live.
 The Knight reluctantly sleeps with the older woman. She insist that what makes people noble is their actions, not their birth or looks.  She insist that if she is really ugly and old and humble as the knight claims, then she has more reason to be faithful to him than if she were beautiful and arrogant. She offers the knight two choices, either to stay as she is, old yet faithful, or become young and beautiful, with a chance that she will live an immoral life with other men. The Knight chooses the second.
 The following morning the woman is beautiful and young. She and the knight live happily ever after.
 The morale thus according to the Wife's tale, was that men should listen to their wives.

 That said, I thought the knight did not get what he deserved! But remember that the woman telling this tale is quite lustful herself. I found the story most intriguing at what was going to happen.  I imagine you did too.

 ''A diligent woman is a crown to her husband: and she that doth things worthy of confusion, is a rottenness in his bones.'' -Proverbs 12: 4