Wife of Bath [Prologue]

The story starts with a woman called "Wife of Bath" who claims that she has an extensive knowlegdge about marriage, having been married to five different men ["Experience, though no written authority Were in this world, is good enough for me To speak of the woe that is in marriage." (3)]. Her first marriage had been arranged when she was twelve, and kept marrying men each time her husband died. Thus due to people's religious perspective, she is criticized heavily for having had multiple husbands, but she rationalizes herself by saying most religious figures enjoyed multiple wives. At that point, someone points out that virginity is very significant for women; however, Wife of Bath disputes his opinion and even goes on to say that she uses her sexual attraction to control her husbands ["I will envy no virginity. (142)"].

Then a Pardoner interrupts her story. The Pardoner shows apprehension about the woman whom he will marry soon, afraid that she might take a full control over him. Instead of advicing him in a direct way, Wife of Bath relates the situation to her own story. She says that out of her five husbands, three of them were good and the other two were bad. She goes on to say that her three husbands were good because they were easy to control since she did not love them much in the first place. She was able to control them with her sexual attraction, and verbally persuading skills. In other words, the sole reason she married them was due to their money.

After that, she describes herself as fourth husband's purgatory on Earth, always trying to make him jealous for more attention and love. However, he died while she was on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The fifth husband, Jankyn, is the one whom Wife of Bath truly loved ["My fifth husband -- God bless his soul!" (525)]. Unfortunately, Jankyn treated her horribly: he would beat her and curse at her. Despite his terrible treatment, Jankyn regained Wife of Bath's love by providing her with sexual satisfaction on bed every night. Wife of Bath then admits that she fell in love with him right after her fourth husband died. Howbeit, one day she rips out some pages of "a book of wicked wives" which Jankyn used to read her everynight and hits him across the face. Out of huge anger, Jankyn smites her back, the reason for one of her ears deafness. Fortunatley, they both manage truce by hading over Jankyn's estate over to Wife of Bath, and end up happy.

From the tone of the prologue, I could not pin-point out the mood of the story. From my own point of view, Wife of Bath seems like a "gold-digger" because she admitted she married four of her five husbands just for money. Then in the end, she became happy after recieving an estate from her fifth husband. Also, her opinion about the role of women contrasts greatly from the perspective thereabout. It was a bit shocking for me when she said she controls men with her sexuality, because that sounded very demeaning to me as a man.

Her characteristic reminded of my friend's ex-girlfriend--she was a pure gold-digger, always asking her boyfriend for new bags, shoes and earring. From my friend I learned not to make acquaintances with girls whom I consider light-headed.