Tale As Old As Time

“Wommen desiren to have sovereyntee
As wel over hir housbond as hir love,
And for to been in maistrie hym above.”

The Wife of Baths story asks us and then gives us the answer of what women want most. To be able to understand what point she is trying to make with her story, we first have to understand who the wife of Bath is.

Who is the Wife of Bath, we ask? She is a woman who is probably close to the age of 50. A fifty year old woman, who tells tales about her past husbands. She had three rich husbands and 2 bad husbands, but she especially loved her last husband, who was younger than her. She tells us why women marry and why men marry, and she questions the many marriages in the bible. Then she tells us a love story of her own. The knight (yes another knight) and his quest to find what women really want.

In truth, her story resembles the story "Beauty and the Beast", in terms of learning to love another for who they are inside, instead of the outside. Her story tells us about a Knight who commits a terrible crime and is told by the queen that the only way to save his life is if he finds out what a woman wants (the beast commits a crime of judgment, and must learn to love another or have his life ruined forever). The knight finds an old woman who promises to help him (the beast meets Belle, who helps him). He then must keep a promise to the old woman in exchange for his life (Belle has to remain with the beast forever in exchange for her father). He has his life but then he must learn to love the old woman, since they marry (Belle and the beast must learn to love people for who they are.)

The knight learns that women desire to be in charge of their husbands or lovers, but he learns so much more than this, in the following scene.

"Choose now," she said, "one of these two things:
To have me ugly and old until I die,
And be to you a true, humble wife,
And never displease you in all my life,
Or else you will have me young and fair,
And take your chances of the crowd
That shall be at your house because of me,
Or in some other place, as it may well be.
Now choose yourself, whichever you please."
At this point the Knight is being tested to see if he learned from his year long experience. He has the choice between young and foolish, or old and true, sweet wife. It is a choice he has to make, or so the reader thinks at first glance.

This knight deliberates and painfully sighs,
But at the last he said in this manner:
"My lady and my love, and wife so dear,
I put me in your wise governance;
Choose yourself which may be most pleasure
And most honor to you and me also.
I do not care which of the two,
For as it pleases you, is enough for me."

"Then have I gotten mastery of you," she said,
"Since I may choose and govern as I please?"


"Yes, certainly, wife," he said, "I consider it best."
He has learned his lesson, and allows his wife to choose! This shows that the wife of bath believes that bad men can become good if they are directed in the correct direction.

"Kiss me," she said, "we are no longer angry,
For, by my troth, I will be to you both --
This is to say, yes, both fair and good.
I pray to God that I may die insane
Unless I to you be as good and true
As ever was wife, since the world was new.
And unless I am tomorrow morning as fair to be seen
As any lady, empress, or queen,
That is between the east and also the west,
Do with my life and death right as you please.
Cast up the curtain, look how it is."

And when the knight saw truly all this,
That she so was beautiful, and so young moreover,
For joy he clasped her in his two arms. .
His heart bathed in a bath of bliss.
A thousand time in a row he did her kiss,
And she obeyed him in every thing
That might do him pleasure or enjoyment.

The old lady becoming beautiful and true to her husband shows that there is a reward for all good that we do. It also shows that the wife of bath believes that women should have a choice (just like in beauty and the beast, Belle has a choice in who she will give her heart to)
"What makes a beast, and what makes a man?"- The Hunchback of Notredam